


Snapshots of an Unexamined Life

by EikaPrime



Series: Snapshots [2]
Category: Splatoon
Genre: Companion to my other Snapshots fic, I didn't wanna write it the idea just showed up and won't go away okay, Pearl just doesn't have a G-rated vocabulary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 37
Words: 40,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25767454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EikaPrime/pseuds/EikaPrime
Summary: Pearl Houzuki is a spoiled rich kid.Pearl Houzuki got the Manta Maria for a birthday present as a squidling.Pearl Houzuki's parents own Camp Triggerfish.Pearl Houzuki can buy anything and everything she wants.Everyone knows EVERYTHING about Pearl Houzuki....But no one knows anything about Pearl.A companion story to Snapshots of an Unlived Life, this story takes a look at the moments that make Pearl Pearl: from the missing zapfish in Splatoon 1 through Octo Expansion.
Series: Snapshots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1865257
Comments: 198
Kudos: 107





	1. Broken

**Broken**

_Remember, darling, there is an us and a them to the world.  
_ _Those less well off will try to fool you.  
_ _They believe their lives are harder than ours._  
_They're wrong. Our lives are even harder.  
_ _Because everyone is out for our wealth._

Pearl throws herself off the stage and into the arms of the crowd. As they carry her along, arms upon arms, Pearl keeps screaming: "ALL THESE FUCKING DUDES BE FUCKING SLEEPING! FUCKING! DUDES! BE FUCKING! SLEEPING!" Even without a mic, her voice carries over and through the crowd, more so as she all-out screams.

The crowd screams with her, and Pearl is deposited back on stage. She turns around, grabs the mic, and screams one more time--

and the speakers break, with a crunching shatter. Sparks flare out at the audience, who scream themselves, and half the lights--the lights there are--go out. Pearl stands there dumbly, mic in hand, and turns to her bandmates. "What?"

"Don't act like you don't know, Houzuki," growls the urchin on guitar.

Pearl frowns at him. "Look, it's not my fault, okay?" She remembers to lower the microphone this time, barely noticing all the people streaming out. "The wiring in this pace--"

"Is better than any of the other bars and clubs we've played at, and you _still_ broke it!" The jelly slams down his guitar, no doubt breaking it.

Pearl swallows, her mouth dry. "I'll pay to have it fixed--"

"Doesn't matter anymore," says the keyboardist. She swipes one tentacle out of her face. "I'm with them. We're better off without you, Houzuki."

Pearl stares at them, at their impassive, angry faces--tired of broken equipment, tired of being kicked out of venues, tired of music, tired of her.

Pearl drops the mic on the ground and storms out. She yanks open the back door of the car and flings herself onto the long seat before it closes behind her; Reef starts the car without comment.

Pearl doesn't move, doesn't react, just lays there, on her stomach, her head jammed into the seat, and doesn't cry. Because she's been kicked out of a band.

Again.

And she should have seen it coming.


	2. Power

**Power**

_Perception, my dear, is everything in life.  
Those who have the right friends,  
_ _Wear the right clothing,  
_ _Have the right manners,_  
_Have an advantage over the rest of the world.  
_ _These matter more than any amount of ethics or ambition._

When the first course is brought out by yet another servant Pearl's never seen before, she reaches for the wrong spoon and slurps her soup.

The conversation stops. Pearl feels her parents' eyes on her. Once that'd be enough for her to stop and reach for the right spoon, bow her head, and play obedient daughter once more. Now, though, she takes an even bigger slurp of soup and looks up with her angriest scowl. "Where's Coral?"

Her mother locks eyes with her. Using the correct spoon, she sips a mouthful of soup and takes her time swallowing and dabbing her lips. "Who's Coral?"

Pearl flushes hot. She reaches for her water glass and tips it too far back, spilling all over herself as she gulps like a child. She sets it down hard so it _just_ hits the edge of the bowl, making a thudding ring as some broth sloshes over the side before it settles. "Coral. Who's worked full time two years and waited on us at supper three times a week since I was thirteen."

Her mother smiles and takes another delicate spoonful of soup. She rings for the server; the new girl appears. "I believe we're ready for the next course." As the girl curtsies and walks away, her mother adds, "I see no difference between that girl or any other. It's inappropriate to be so familiar with those beneath you, Pearl."

Pearl holds her mother's eyes as the new girl takes her soup away. At last, she asks, "Was she fired _because_ I knew her name?" Or worse, did her mother know about those kisses--they'd decided against it after a week, they didn't have anything in common, but damn were those kisses good.

Her mother tips her head to one side, nothing showing on her face. "If you're so desperate for companionship while we're gone, I can arrange a playdate for you. Several of our neighbors' children have grown up to be quite the fine gentlemen." Her eyes harden as the main meal is placed before her. "Perhaps their manners will rub off on you."

If that wasn't a message, Pearl doesn't know what is. She swallows her thanks as the new girl puts a plate before her and picks up the correct fork.

"How goes making yourself famous without us?" asks her father.

"It'll happen any day now," Pearl growls at her plate.

"Fine, fine. We'll be off again tomorrow, visiting Jellaton. Oh, girl, get me more rice."


	3. Priorities

**Priorities**

_ Once one is successful in life, one tends to  _ stay  __ successful.  
_It is, after all, a habit like any other.  
_ _And a good habit won't break, even when others interfere._

The great zapfish is gone.

For the first time in a long time, Pearl keeps watching past the day's stages, past the Squid Sisters' segment, to their expert interview. Inkopolis has plenty of back-up power, normally used when the zapfish is sick or exclusively used by emergency services when some part of the system needs replacing. The clownfish urges everyone to conserve electricity: the great zapfish may have just wandered further than usual, but all Inkopolis must act as though they have to rely on the half-grown babies.

Pearl switches off the TV and picks up the phone. "Inkopolis Power, Ray speaking."

"It's Pearl."

Ray lets out a breath. "Cod be thanked. You saw the news?"

"Course. The rents wouldn't want me to know, but--how's the nursery?" Pearl gets off the couch as they talk and starts making her way upstairs.

"We've got a hundred eggs hatching in a few weeks and we might have fifty yearlings ready for training in a couple weeks," Ray says. "Their lifespan is hell, even without predators another couple die every month, but we've got five adolescents ready to add supplemental power by the end of summer."

Pearl gnaws on her lower lip. "Good. Now, I don't care _what_ the fuck sort of pressure they put on you, keep them to their normal rotations. We put too much stress on them and they'll stop eating, that'll make everything worse. Anyone gets testy send them to me, I'll tear them a new beak."

"And the ones who'll try force?" Ray's voice wobbles, the only sign she's nervous. "Your parents--"

"They still give me a fucking allowance like I'm a squidling. I'll have numbers for you by tomorrow, but we should be able to hire some extra guards for all the locations, maybe swing a temporary pay increase for everyone dealing with the shit down there." Pearl reaches the top floor and swings down the small hallway to get the attic's trapdoor.

"That should help. You're a blessing, Pearl."

The rope for the trapdoor's thin as a light switch and out of reach. Pearl jumps for it, just missing. She gets it on her second attempt. "Call me anytime, anyplace, got it?"

"I've got it."

"And don't say a _word_ to my parents."

"My lips are sealed."

"Good. Pearl out." She ends the call and climbs up the narrow ladder into the ceiling. This is the only place allowed to gather dust and there, on the far wall, is a simple black box labeled DO NOT TOUCH (This Means You, Pearl).

Pearl smiles grimly and opens it, the switches neatly labeled.

First to go is her parents' personal movie theater, with the lights in the floors always at a low glow. Next is the movie theater she's permitted to use. Each hall of the guest wing has its own switch, and she hits them one by one; any guests her parents invite over will have to see by the light of their tentacles. Her mother's painting room, her father's study, the dance hall, all of it shut off.

She'll have to patrol the house later, make sure none of the servants got caught in the dark, but she'll do it all now.

She lingers for a moment, one finger tapping by the switch marked Music Studio. That's her pride and joy, with her instrument collection, and the couches, and even a separate glass-walled recording station. She spent hours down there with her band--not that it matters now. That's all that's left, besides the kitchen and entryway and hall with her room and a few for any visiting relatives. Surely leaving the studio on, its lights and speakers and mikes, won't cause too much stress on the system.

Pearl's phone rings. She grabs it without looking. "I swear, if this isn't fucking--"

"Ray here."

Unless the Great Zapfish is back, that's a bad sign. "Shoot."

"We need the extra guards now. We've got several broken locks and about twenty missing adolescents."

Pearl turns off the electricity to the music studio. "Start hiring. I'll get you the money."


	4. Nature

**Nature**

_Always treat the natural world with the utmost caution.  
_ _Plants and wildlife do not care for status.  
_ _This makes them dangerous._  
_If you must interact with such things, do so only with others.  
_ _And ensure you take the proper precautions._

Pearl stomps off her property, crosses the street, and arrives at the base of Mount Nantai before she remembers she's supposed to let someone know before she goes hiking. Well, fuck them. She's not going anywhere she hasn't been a thousand times. It's a nice June day, and she's going to enjoy it if it kills her.

Pearl chooses the red circle path and makes her way up, grinding her teeth so hard they creak. She's feeling a bit better by the time she reaches the small waterfall; the birds don't care, they just sing how they want, and _they_ never lack for company. Pearl bets _their_ parents don't call home to say they've decided to spend the whole summer assisting a deepwater fishing plant, and telling Pearl the zapfish issue _really_ isn't a big deal, but it's nice to see her take an issue in the world for once--

Pearl stops at the base of the waterfall and screams. One long yell, the sort she doesn't dare do on stage, everything she has coming out her mouth until she's out of air. Then she heaves a deep breath and does it again, and again, until she's panting and the birds are silent and the only sound is the morbid trickle of the waterfall. Pearl groans, leaps the stream, scales the tree with scuffs from a million previous trips, and follows it to a clearing not marked on any trail. Promises herself, like she has a thousand times before, that she'll ride that waterfall someday.

She's got a couple things here, covered in tarps. Her first drum set; a guitar that cost less than her shoes. Some days, when she comes up here, she settles in and sings, scribbling lyrics and ideas on the rocks, using other rocks as chalk.

Today, though, she just needs to vent.

So she does.


	5. Isolation

**Isolation**

_To be important is to stand apart.  
_ _Never long for anything else._  
_You were born to fill a role in life.  
_ _To try for anything else is to invite failure._

Some sort of poet takes the stage. The last performer, an urchin with a drum set, settles into his chair. Pearl grabs one of her spare drink tickets and crosses the cafe to plop at the table next to him. "You were fantastic!"

The urchin laughs and rubs his spikes back and forth a couple times. "It's just an open mic night. I'm just getting started."

"Well yeah, maybe, but--do you have a band yet?"

Urchin boy cocks one eyebrow. "Are you wanting to sponsor it or something?"

"Well, no, but--"

"Then whatever you want, get out of here. My girl'll kill me if I get too familiar with a rich kid." His crooked smile doesn't reach his eyes. "She figures even I can be bought, you know?"

Pearl grinds her teeth and abandons the table. At least this one didn't swear at her.

The next likely prospect, a jellyfish with a harp, flat-out tells Pearl she has no interest in competing for the spotlight _inside_ her own band and 'spills' her coffee on Pearl's shirt.

She walks right past the guitarist's table when he looks her up and down like chum in the water.

By the tenth rejection, Pearl's had it. She sneaks out the door with her tentacles flat against her head, remaining drink vouchers in a crumpled pile on her table. It's too early to be dark, but it is anyway, clouds bumbling overhead and she glares up at the sky.

A large, dark shape moves across it and Pearl freezes. The great zapfish, big and lumbering and sluggish like he's tired, swims across the sky and curls up around the power pole.

A small knot in Pearl's stomach unties itself. She taps at her phone. “Inkopolis Power--”

“The Great Zapfish is back,” Pearl interrupts. “Just watched it curl up in its normal spot.”

Ray lets out what might be a sigh of relief. “Things should go back to normal soon, then. If it wouldn't hamper productivity and risk strangling the thing, I'd put a leash on it.”

“If it wouldn't, then I'd support that.” Pearl glances up again. “How much longer will you need guards?” Paying for them has been taking all of Pearl's allowance and then some. She doesn't really need her savings, her parents'll give her money for anything any time she asks, but she likes having it anyway.

“A week, maybe two, for people to calm down. They know they're temp employees until the Great Zapfish returns, it should be fine. Again, _thank you_ Pearl.”

“Anytime. Call me with deets. And--”

“Don't tell your parents,” he choruses with her.

Pearl smiles and hangs up. But as she looks away from the zapfish, her smile fades.

Fine. She can handle this. But music? The thing that makes her hearts sing, that makes her want to be alive? No one will give her a chance.


	6. Recognition

**Recognition**

_Empathy means that others can take advantage of you.  
_ _We all have choices in life.  
_ _Some of us make worse choices than others._  
_They must deal with the consequences.  
_ _Fixing them is not your responsibility._

“I had a conversation with Ray yesterday,” says Pearl's father.

Pearl looks up. “Who?” She finishes her salad, correct fork, correct posture.

Pearl's mother smiles at her. “I appreciate the effort, honey, but we know you know who Ray is. It's alright. The overseer of our assets deserves some recognition.”

He's the _director_ of the whole damn operation and does more to keep Inkopolis running than her parents ever will, but Pearl bites her tongue. Providing money is a service, and without it, nothing else would ever happen. “How is he?” She sets her fork down and nods in thanks to T—no don't even think the new girl's name.

“The plants are in excellent shape, the young zapfish growing nicely, and we turned quite a profit thanks to this year's earlier events.” Her mother accepts the next dish without even acknowledging the serving girl. “Despite the slight decrease in electricity use, we were able to raise prices--”

Pearl drops her fork. It lands in the peas, making them roll off her plate. “You raised prices?!”

“Honestly, Pearl, it's business sense,” says her father. He cuts into the fish fillet without so much as scratching the plate beneath it. “The supply was less, there was great demand, so we raised prices to decrease demand and still made a killing.”

Pearl picks up her fork. “It's electricity, though. People can't live without it.”

“They can live with less, though,” says her mother. “I know you were worried about people attacking the plants—nothing ever _happened,_ Pearl, dear, you really worry about the wrong things--”

Pearl snorts before she can stop herself.

Her mother raises one perfectly arched brow. "Do you have something to  _say_ , Pearlie?"

Cod, does Pearl hate that nickname. "There were four separate occasions when the facilities were targeted," Pearl says, cutting up her fish. "The training yards, the sleeping quarters, and twice the nurseries. Ray was under the impression you were paying for the guards." She tacks on the lie at the end. "Technically, you were; it just went through me first."

For a moment, there's silence. The only sound is the tink of Pearl's fork against the plate. "May I have some more orange juice? Excellent," says Pearl's father.

When the servants take away their plates, her mother continues as though nothing happened. "In any case, we made sure the hospitals and other emergency services continued to have a free and uninterrupted supply." The next course is set in front of them; her mother winds spaghetti around her fork with ease. "I'll ensure you're reimbursed for your expenses. It's nice to see you're taking an interest in the family business. Have you given up that silly performance idea yet?"

Pearl jams her fork into her spaghetti. "It is  _not_ a  _Silly Performance Idea,_ mother."

"We'll be gone again tomorrow," says her father, finishing his spaghetti. "For two months, this time. Business in Kelpdom, you know."

"And while we're gone," her mother signals for the dessert course, "try to grow up."

Pearl abandons her plate, and dessert, to flee for the stairs.

She needs to scream, but she can't go to Mount Nantai now. She needs to scream, and break things, and take a risk, get adrenaline pumping.

Maybe now's a good time to take her father's snowboard. And if he misses it, tough.


	7. Stranger

**Stranger**

_The biggest risk is to do nothing.  
_ _Never stay quiet.  
_ _If your life makes you unhappy, it's your duty to change it.  
_ _Even if changing it means going against us.  
_ _You'll understand someday, Pearlie._  
_Disappointing us is bad,  
_ _but nothing is so terrible as losing yourself._

Three bottles of super glue, two lengths of rope, some duct tape, and several staples later, Pearl stands up and wipes her forehead. The motor on the back of the snowboard's as stable as it's gonna get, so it's time to realize a childhood dream. She straps on her helmet, drags the snowboard to the edge of the river--right by the tree with the low branches--and pulls that on. Then she swallows hard, even though she visited a respawn pad before coming here, and uses the branches to pull herself into the center of the river, hand over hand.

"Here goes nothing," she says to the air, turns on the motor, and lets go.

It's AWESOME and works PERFECTLY. The wind in her face contains drops of water, burning a little but not near enough to make this less awesome. She swoops from side to side, like surfers in those old human flicks, the rumble of the motor and rush of water in her ears, going around the rocks and straight off the top of the falls. "BOOYAH!" she shouts, doing a flip, a second flip, watching the river below her turn to grass and she smacks into the ground chest-first hard enough to knock the wind out of her, the motor and momentum still lifting her legs up and slamming her down again so hard she sees stars and her ears ring.

Pearl closes her eyes, which helps with the stars, as the motor dies. The sun is still _way_ too bright past them, and it hurts. Past the ringing, she distantly hears a girl ask, "Are you all right?" in an accent like gargled rocks.

Pearl groans, tries to open her eyes, and shuts them against the light. "Turn off the _sun."_ There probably isn't anyone there, this path isn't popular, but if she knocked herself hard enough to hear voices she may as well talk back.

"I don't know how," says the girl again, but she must move to stand between Pearl and the sun, because a shadow falls over Pearl's eyes. "You're not inking. I think you're okay." The ringing is going away now, making it easier for Pearl to understand. She still sounds like she's gargling rocks.

Pearl waves one arm. "Of course I'm okay!" she tells mystery girl. She may be half-splatted, but she's _punk,_ she's _tough_ , she's gotta act it. "I've taken more hits while crowd surfing. A little fall like that wouldn't hurt MC Princess, AKA the danger princess, AKA Punk Rapper Supreme." Pearl opens her eyes to thank her rescuer and her brain short-circuits.

Kneeling next to her is a _very_ pretty inkling with her suckers on the outside of black-teal tentacles and an outfit that'd be bordering indecent even for sunbathers.

Pearl closes her eyes again "Or the helmet did squit and I'm hallucinating all this," she admits. "That's also possible."

"Why do you say that?" asks the girl.

"Because the person I almost landed on is half naked." Although, if Pearl were hallucinating, why'd she come up with a new hairstyle for the girl? It's fresh as all fuck, but she's _never_ seen someone with their suckers on the outside.

"I've been walking a lot. I got hot."

There's no way in shell Pearl heard that right. She sits up, the better to stare at the girl, with her green eyes and gorgeous strange pink pupils... man, Pearl's subconscious is really doing a number on her. "You got hot hiking in _October_ ," she clarifies, because even if it's the nicest day they've had in weeks it's still fucking October. "So you took off your clothes?"

"I knew I'd get hot, so I only wore this."

Pearl mumbles something, she's honestly not sure what, as she peels off her helmet and checks it for damage. There isn't any, but then, this is _clearly_ a fever dream or something, so why would there be? "Okay, what's _wrong_ with you?"

The girl stares at her like _Pearl_ is the one being irrational here. Which, okay, Pearl still has the broken parts of the snowboard strapped to her feet, but still. She busies herself taking them off as the girl says, "We do it all the time back home. What about _you?_ You just jumped—you just—I'm not even sure _what_ you just did, but there was loads wrong with it."

Pearl flops back on the ground. Of all the--her brain had to come up with a semi-plausible explanation. Sure, there's lots of farms and stuff on Inkopolis's outskirts, but there's also at least a dozen communes with, as her mother put it, 'questionable beliefs'. Pearl played turf war with a boy once, who said he ran away because his family didn't believe in turning from squid to human, you had to choose a form. And there was that old man from Calamari County who kept patrolling the square yelling about how the Octarians were coming to destroy Inkopolis, which was dumb as shit because they'd been extinct since the great turf war a hundred years ago.

At last, she mutters the least insulting thing she can think of: "I got rescued by a country rube. Look, I attached a motor to my dad's old snowboard, okay? It was _awesome!_ I was gonna do the _best_ jump off that waterfall.

The pause could hold a judgemental _essay_. "You did. You missed."

"Then I'll do it again," says Pearl, because until she crashed it was awesome, and there are worse things to do than lie here conversing with a hallucination _._

"It broke."

"I'll buy another." Pearl can definitely afford more snowboards. She sits up again. "What's your name?"

The girl fiddles with her goggles for a second--she wears them pushed up like a fashion accessory, and even from here Pearl can tell they're broken. "Marina," she says at last.

"Marina, okay." Pearl takes a deep breath, cause hallucination or no, this girl needs serious help. "Look, Marina, it's nice that you tried to save me and all, but you seriously can't walk around like that, okay? I don't know what hick thing they do in the country--"

"To start with, when someone introduces themselves, we introduce ourselves back," the girl, _Marina_ , snaps.

Pearl can't help but laugh. She doesn't _know?_ "Pearl," Pearl says, instead of something insulting. "Pearl Houzuki. And I've gotta _go_."

Of course, because there's only one path down the mountain, she winds up having to deal with her hallucination a bit longer.

Fine.

Soon as she's home, she's calling the family doctor.

Until then, Pearl may as well amuse herself.


	8. Chance

**Chance**

_People will come at you in strange ways, Pearl.  
_ _Everyone wants something, make no mistake.  
_ _But it's not as your parents say.  
_ _Some people only want attention.  
_ _Or love.  
_ _Or a chance to prove their worth.  
_ _These are the people you can form a bond with.  
_ _But if they want your money? Forgetaboutit._  
_They're the ones your parents warn you about.  
_ _And believe you me, there are a LOT of those._

A week later, Pearl is ready with another snowboard, motor already attached. She needs to scream--or to sing. There may not be much difference.

NO ONE wants to be in a band with her. Not in all Inkopolis. Squit, Pearl's good, but she doesn't have the skills to be her own group. Not by herself. Besides, there's something about being in a band, a _good_ band, with relying on each other and the voices and instruments blending into something greater... Pearl wants that. She aches for it.

She wants to stand out, _needs_ to stand out, but that's all she does. And there's a big fucking difference between standing out and standing alone.

So even though it's cold enough that Pearl's got on a sweatshirt and long pants, she takes the trail and makes her way up to her secret spot, drops the modified snowboard on the ground, and lets loose.

Pearl screams with every bit of frustration, and anger, and despair that's built up. Her parents are gone again, and much as they annoy her, she _misses_ them. There's not a musician in the city who wants to work with her. She'll never be anything but Houzuki, Houzuki, Houzuki. She can't have friends beneath her and no one on 'her level' wants to deal with, well, _her_.

But when Pearl's all screamed out, when her throat's scratchy and her eyes are scratchy, when she's swiped at her face with her sleeve until it's dry and taken a long drink and just  _breathed_ , when she's done with rage and left with nothing but stubbornness and a determination to show the  _world_ how wrong they are, she sings.

Some of what she sings is more like sing-screaming, the chorus from Fucking Dudes are Fucking Sleeping and her old band's other songs. Some of it is old, melodies her mother sung her to sleep with before she could use her kid form. Some of it's the songs she likes now, bits from the Chirpy Chips and Squid Squad and more than one piece from the Squid Sisters.

She tries to come up with things of her own. She tries, but all that comes out is more swearing, and emo crap and she  _swore_ she'd never cross  _that_ line, so she just keeps circling back around to pop songs. And that's okay. No one's around to hear, and it's good practice. Staying on pitch, keeping a melody...

Except she's just finished Calamari Inkantation when someone claps.

Pearl whirls around. Someone's standing there—tall, dark skinned, shadowed among the trees. “You sing good,” says a voice in an accent like garbled rocks, and Pearl frowns; where has she heard that before? She knows it was recent...

Then the girl steps out from under the trees, and Pearl's brain whirs to a stop. There's Marina, hallucination girl from last week. Must not be a hallucination, then. She's in an old splatfest t-shirt, supporting team art, which is just wrong; all of Pearl's t-shirts are hung in her closet and protected in plastic, like proper historical artifacts. The shirt is big on her, somehow, hanging down low enough to cover what Pearl hopes is actual clothing underneath, though it couldn't cover more than last time.

Still, even the shirt is more than last time. And her tentacles are  _wiggling—_ Pearl can't take her eyes off them. Most squids' tentacles move, sure, but not like that, like she's just barely containing herself—

“We should form a band.”

Pearl's brain derails. She shakes her head twice, hard, and looks back at Marina. She has her hands clasped behind her like a soldier, but she's bouncing on her toes, and maybe her tentacles are wiggling because she's nervous? “I'm sorry?”

Marina opens her mouth, closes it again, and coughs. When she speaks, it's quieter. “W-we should form a band. You said, last week, that you liked my voice, and I play keyboard and turntables and guitar and know some of other instruments, and I could hear your singing all the way by the falls and—and—would you?”

Pearl stares at her hallucination, who's now fiddling with her broken goggles one-handed, shifting from foot to foot like Pearl used to when she was waiting to be punished. Her hallucination, who  _wants_ to be in a band with her, when no one else in the whole fucking world will even give her a chance.

Marina.

Pearl keeps her voice harsh. “If you  _really_ wanna be in a band with me—you know Bettafish Park? Down the street from Makomart?”

“With the circle river and four bridges over it?” Marina asks. “And the weird rock hill thing in the center inklings keep going up with ropes instead of swimming?”

“It's a climbing mountain,” Pearl says. “It's fun. You've never tried?”

Marina shakes her head. Now she's fiddling with her shortest tentacle, the one that's just above her eye—and that's strange, most inklings' tentacles are all about the same length, even if they're styled all sorts of ways. “Even if we had one back home, I wouldn't be allowed,” she says, breaking eye contact to look at her feet.

Huh. “Meet me there,” Pearl says. “The benches by the cotton-candy stall. If you're serious about being in a band. Now get outta here, I've got stuff to do.”

Pearl just sees Marina's relieved smile before she turns and flees, her tentacles trailing behind her—three of them. Three, plus the short fourth one, not the normal six. Did they not grow properly? Whatever the case, it's probably a sensitive subject. Pearl won't mention it.

She won't risk scaring off a chance.


	9. Keep

**Keep**

_Nobody wants charity.  
_ _That holds as true for you as it does for the poor.  
_ _Unless they're running a scam or giving up—and you don't want to deal with those.  
_ _So nobody wants charity.  
_ _But you have help to give, Pearl. Because you're a Houzuki.  
_ _And despite what your parents say, even the poor are worthy._  
_But they don't want your charity.  
_ _So give them a way to deserve it._

“I really don't need much, Pearl,” Marina mumbles, her eyes on her hands.

Pearl scowls and pays for a second outfit. “We're in a band together, Rina,” Pearl says, accepting the bag. “We need to look right. Playing music on the street's fine,” she lies, “but people seeing you look so  _shoddy_ will hurt our brand.”

“This is more than enough, though.” She pulls her broken goggles down to hide her face, and one hand plays with her shortest tentacle. Marina's done that a couple times before, when they were practicing in the park, getting to know each other and experimenting with maybe writing songs. It's clear as a shout that Marina's uncomfortable, overwhelmed, needs to take a break.

Pearl doesn't push. “Fine. Where do you live? I can give you a ride.”

Marina's tentacles twist—did that question make her uncomfortable, too? “You don't need to--”

“Come on, where do you live?” Pearl is done with this. “I've gotta see your place. We can jam there. Don't need a mic or recording equipment to have fun and get better.”

Marina's lips are pinched, and she's still fiddling with that tentacle, but she lowers her head and mumbles the name of a bridge. There's a small apartment complex on the other side of it; one of Pearl's last band-dicks lived there. “I don't need a ride, though,” Marina says. “It's only a short walk.”

“I'll come with you, then,” Pearl says, tapping out a quick text to her driver. Marina's been just this side of embarrassed since Pearl found her playing on the street for tips; she won't let her get away. If Pearl lets Marina out of her sight, Marina may decide against being in a band together. She could disappear into the city, and Pearl would never find her.

Only, when they reach the bridge, Marina doesn't lead her across, but under it. The bridge itself makes a roof, of sorts, and there's almost a cave worn away in the dirt and stones around it where a pile of rags and a couple bits of trash lay. Marina looks at it, looks at Pearl, and can't meet Pearl's eyes.

Pearl takes a deep breath, because she  _can't_ afford to insult Marina now, and pulls out her phone, texts her driver to meet them at the bridge, then uses it as a small lamp in the twilight. “This is... pretty good,” she says at last.

“The rent's what I can afford,” Marina says, not looking up, “and it's not much worse than home. Less crowded.”

_Holy Shit._ No wonder she's been shivering in just her splatfest t-shirts and wearing those stupid underthings like they're an actual outfit. It crashes down on Pearl like snow off a tree branch: Marina came here with  _nothing_ . She just stands there, a shopping bag over one arm, shivering even with Pearl's scarf and giant headphones to add some extra warmth. 

Pearl has everything, and she'll be damned if she's gonna let a good musician like Marina get away.

“Well, I'm not letting you store your new clothes on the ground, that's ridiculous.” Marina looks at her, eyes big behind broken goggles. “Come on, Rina, you can store your stuff at my place. It's kinda huge, but don't worry about it.” The sound of a car parking above them has Pearl holding out her hand for Marina to take. “It's my parents. They're never around.”

Marina glances between Pearl and that hand once, twice, a third time before resting her own hand in Pearl's.

Pearl doesn't wait, grabbing it and hauling Marina behind her. The taller girl stumbles, but Pearl doesn't let up. If she lets Marina have a chance to think, she may never get in the car.

By the time they arrive, Marina's relaxed enough to push her goggles back up, but when she sees Pearl's house, her jaw drops. Her tentacles tangle together. “Pearl--”

“I know, it's ridiculous. Come on.” Pearl grabs Marina's hand again and pulls, tugging her out of the car; Marina trips over her own feet, her head twisting like a doll's as she tries to see everything at once. Pearl tugs Marina behind her, up the grand staircase (Marina almost trips over half the steps) and turns down the hall where Pearl's room is... and a bunch of rooms for visiting relatives. “I'm starving,” she lies, because she took Marina to get food earlier and is positive Marina lied when she said she was full, “Look, I've got this unused room over here, so I'll hang up your stuff in it for safe-keeping and you go clean up in that attached bathroom.” She chooses the smallest one, because Marina's overwhelmed enough, and pushes the door open, pulls Marina inside.

Marina won't stop staring. Pearl keeps tugging her along. “You clean up in the attached bathroom,” she says again, opening the door to it and flicking on the light. “Put on some of your new stuff. By the time you're done, there'll be grilled cheese. I make  _fresh_ grilled cheese.”

She doesn't, not really, but she abandons Marina there anyway. Goes down to the kitchen and makes five sandwiches, because she can eat one and she doesn't want Marina to feel bad about eating everything, and when she gets back up to the room Marina is standing outside it. She still has her goggles on, and the headphones Pearl gave her, but now she's wearing capris and a sweatshirt, and her face and tentacles are cleaner than Pearl's ever seen. She lets Pearl tow her two rooms down the hall, to Pearl's room with its unmade bed and clothes on the floor and drum set in the corner and tiny grand piano, and she's so busy looking around that she doesn't seem to realize she's eating until she's midway through her third sandwich.

Pearl can tell Marina's recovered because her face turns ashen. “Thank you, Pearl, but I should go,” Marina says, and oh  _hell_ no. “I've caused you too much trouble already--”

“Bullshit,” Pearl snaps. She's not letting Marina go—she'll never see her again. She can't lose another bandmate, not when they're finally getting somewhere. “You're not making me do anything I don't wanna, Rina.”

Marina ducks her head and yawns. “But—you don't even  _know_ me, really, or—or anything about me,” she mutters. She sets down her uneaten sandwich. “I should just go. It'll be better. Safer.”

“Bullshit,” Pearl says again, as Marina tries—and fails—to smother another yawn. Marina's right, they don't know anything about each other except they both like music and hiking Mount Nantai, but Pearl's put together enough to know whatever cult Marina came from sunk their claws in deep and she knows fuckall about inkling culture or, well, _anything_. But Pearl wouldn't like it if someone tried to protect _her_ that way, so instead Pearl points out the window, where one or two stars peak through the clouds. “Do you see how dark it is outside? It's not safe to leave right now, Rina. Guess you're spending the night.”

“But--”

“You can sleep in the room with your clothes,” Pearl continues, talking over her. “My bedroom's right down the hall, it'll be fine. The sheets and crud are clean. Are you done eating? Cause if you are, you should check out the room now, lemme know if you need anything.”

Marina pulls down her goggles and can't meet Pearl's eyes. But Pearl bullies her into finishing the sandwich, and then all but shoves her into the spare room, pointing out where they've got spare pajamas for visitors. They're not really spare, this room is supposed to be Aunt Illex's but Illex would approve.

And when she peeks in ten minutes later, to ask Marina if she wants to jam a bit before bed, finds Marina already asleep, fully clothed, sprawled out on top of the giant bed.

“Good night and sweet dreams, Rina,” she whispers, flicking off the light, and closes the door and slumps against it.

That didn't go terribly.

She still has a bandmate.

She still has a chance.


	10. Teach

**Teach**

_Creativity comes from seeing the world through new eyes.  
_ _Learning is understanding the world in a new way.  
_ _Teaching requires one to see the way another does._  
_Always be prepared to learn and teach.  
_ _They'll open new ways to the world._

“Even though it comes in different colors, all popcorn is one type of corn, and not like the type of corn on the cob.” Pearl opens the funnel and a mass of freshly-popped corn flows out. Pearl fills six different bowls. “It's called popcorn because when you heat it like this, it makes a popping sound.”

“A lot of names are just talking about how stuff are, right?” Marina balances four of the bowls in her arms. “The orange fruit, the radio that picks up radio waves--”

“You mean they have descriptive names. Hang on, let's move first.” Together, the pair of them carry the bowls to the next room: a lavish open living area with gold trim on the baseboards and plush carpeting with a massive TV and couch with a truly ridiculous coffee table parked in front of it. The two deposit their bowls on the table, among the salt, garlic salt, pepper, butter, cinnamon-sugar mix, melted caramel, melted butter, and assorted odds and ends. “Got your notebook?”

Marina digs in a pocket and pulls out a small notebook with a pen tucked in the spiral binding. She flips to a clean page. “Ready.”

“Descriptive. From Describe,” Pearl says, and spells both words, then defines them. Marina writes them down slowly, her fingers unsure on the pen. “You could also say those were self-explanatory names. Explanatory, from explain,” and she defines them for Marina again.

Marina nods and tucks the pen back in the book. “It's almost a direct translation for—well, something.”

“In the language you sing in? The one your parents spoke?” Pearl asks, but doesn't expect an answer. Marina never talks about her home. When the silence stretches too long, Pearl picks up the remote. “What do you wanna watch tonight?”

“Maybe something real?” Marina asks. “And then we can read another chapter of Waterfish Down before bed.”

“Only if you read a full page this time,” Pearl says. “You're getting good.”

“Paragraph.”

“Half page.”

“Deal.” Pearl grabs the remote and flicks to the history channel. Marina's a science and math nerd, the sort of person who finds a keyboard in a music store trash and fixes it with more trash, who asked to take apart and examine every appliance the staff was going to throw out over the past two weeks, and who _fixed_ half of them. Pearl's learned some interesting tidbits about her past—she was forced to drop out of school when she was fucking _nine,_ for crissakes, and worked ever since—so taking stuff apart is probably how she learned anything.

Marina's fucking smart, and they've got a fucking  _awesome_ song hammered out that's half in a language Pearl can't speak, and they're gonna be famous and Pearl's gonna make sure Marina doesn't look like an idiot. She deserves better than that. But she's also living in Pearl's place because Pearl made up enough excuses for her to stick around that she's stopped trying to go back to the bridge, and it's... it's nice. Having someone to talk to.

It's really, really nice.

“Looks like our options are... let's see.” Pearl flicks through the descriptions. “A feature on the Great Turf War a hundred years ago, with an emphasis on the Squidbeak Splatoon.”

Marina wrinkles her nose and puts butter and garlic salt on one bowl of popcorn. “Pass.”

“Interviews with Sheldon—okay, I'm vetoing that, you haven't met him yet but the guy runs the weapons shop.” Marina chuckles as Pearl adds, “he can't stop talking to save his life.”

“I've known a few people like that,” Marina says, taking a bite of popcorn. She adds more garlic salt. “They're dead now.”

“What? How?”

“Wouldn't stop talking.”

Her voice is dead serious, but Pearl's gotten to know Marina's sense of humor by now, so she grabs one of the couch pillows and bops her with it. Marina cracks a grin, then, arm half-raised to block the blow but she must've stopped herself partway.

Pearl shakes her head and puts the pillow back, grabbing a different bowl of popcorn and covering it in chili powder and melted caramel. “There's a documentary about the Octarians, from before the Great Turf War and their extinction--”

“Octarians are extinct?”

Pearl glances away from the TV. Marina's staring, her tentacles still. Marina's tentacles are  _never_ still. “Well, yeah,” Pearl says, setting the remote down. Was Marina's family one of those weird 'Octarians are still around' sects? Though it's not that unusual. “After the Great Turf War, people just... stopped seeing Octolings. There weren't many Octarians left of the other sorts, either; pretty much all of them were too old to have kids anyway, my gran told me.”

“But _extinct?_ ” Marina's voice catches; she shakes her head. “They've gotta be around somewhere.”

“Well, yeah. Inklings weren't exactly targeting kids or civilians during the great turf war,” Pearl says; that was covered in their history segment. “No one knows why or how they went extinct. But no one's seen one in eighty or ninety years.” She leans back against the cushions and shoves a handful of popcorn in her mouth. 

Marina frowns at her. “No one's seen  _any?_ Any ever?”

“Nope.” Pearl shrugs. “I mean, sure, maybe they didn't die. Maybe they're coexisting with salmonids or hiding in caves underground or something even more ridiculous.” Pearl laughs at the idea of it. “But one way or another, they're not around anymore.”

Marina reaches up to fiddle with her shortest tentacle and looks away.

Pearl glances at the TV. “Oh! I think you'll like this one: a history of ice cream.”

Marina looks back at her, grinning. “Put it on! Put it on!”


	11. Camp

**Camp**

_Your parents have never left their comfort zone.  
_ _Comfort is an important thing, to be sure.  
_ _But living a life without risk,  
_ _A life where all you do is what's always been done,  
_ _Is not living._  
 _Being scared shitless is good for you.  
_ _Just don't tell your parents I taught you to swear._

Pearl paces back and forth outside the jumpad to newbie's alley. Marina has to do this: it's the simplest, most reliable way to get cash in all Inkopolis, and much as Pearl'd like Marina to live with her forever, Pearl's parents'll come home soon and she doesn't want Marina to deal with _that_. And if she's never battled before because her family was stupid—seriously, the way Marina touches that short tentacle every time she talks about the things she isn't allowed to do—then she needs to. She'll have fun and gain so much confidence!

But the way her voice wobbled and her face paled when she said she didn't wanna splat anyone makes Pearl wonder if she knows about respawn pads. She'll have to reassure Marina somehow about that.

Marina emerges from newbie's ally then, ink tank over her shoulders and junior in hand, sprints over to Pearl, and babbles, “That can't be _it!_ ”

“Sure it can,” says Pearl.

“It was just—it was balloons! It was balloons, and inking walls, _everyone_ knows how to ink walls and swim, and—it can't be _that easy_.”

Pearl bites her tongue until she's not gonna laugh. It's easier when she looks at Marina's ashen face, at how she's pulled her goggles down again, fiddles with her short tentacle, her mouth pinched. "It absolutely can." Pearl says.

"But there'll be people _shooting_ at me." Marina's voice drops until she's almost whispering. "I don't wanna _splat_ anyone, Pearl. Even if--even--"

Pearl grabs Marina's hand. "You don't have to. So, how do you feel about going turfing now?"

Marina reaches up to play with her tentacle again. "Maybe this isn't the best time--"

"We're doing it," Pearl says. She tugs Marina's hand, but Marina doesn't move. "Lockers over here, changing rooms into turf gear--they've got newbie stuff in your size, people are nice to new turfers--"

"Pearl, now's _not a good time."_

Pearl stares straight at Marina and raises an eyebrow. "There'll never _be_ a good time, if you're scared. One match. Then, if you really don't wanna continue today, we'll go."

Pearl doesn't give Marina a chance to argue anymore, just pulls hard enough to make her stumble forward. Pearl shoves Marina into a changing room, tosses a shirt and a 'first ten matches' pin and headband and shoes over the curtain, and retrieves her splattershot from her locker before Marina's finished. Then she drags Marina (still pale, but now silent) to a waiting area.

Five people are in there already. A boy is still wearing newbie clothes as well. "Your parents didn't let you in til now, too?" he asks.

Marina gulps. "I--I, uh--"

"She's nervous," Pearl supplies for her. "Can we be on the same team?"

"Opposite team as me and Fiin, then," says another boy. "We'll spread out the newbies."

"Oh good, here's an eighth," says someone else, and then they're piling on the launch pads (Marina's hands are so tight around her junior Pearl expects them to creak) and jump to the starting point.

Camp Triggerfish. Pearl knows this place, could travel it in her sleep, has overseen some of the repairs. "You'll be fine," Pearl whispers.

Marina doesn't respond, as the countdown ends and they can go. Their teammates leap forward. So does Marina.

She then trips, drops her weapon, and tumbles to the wood below, rolling five times before ending upside-down against a wall, her gun still at spawn.

Pearl can't help it: she laughs so hard she can't stand up. Turf? Who CARES? "That," she gasps, "was brilliant."

And Marina pushes up her broken goggles and laughs, too.


	12. Apart

**Apart**

_You are a Houzuki.  
_ _You need to act like it.  
_ _But even if you don't, remember._  
_You are a Houzuki.  
_ _You will always belong with us._

"So this is it," Marina says.

Pearl swallows hard and tries not to breathe through her nose. The one-bedroom apartment is... is... it's certainly a one-bedroom apartment. "Where should I put the leftovers?"

"Kitchen's there, set it on the counter. I don't have a table yet." Marina gestures towards an area where the diseased carpeting stops and bare dirt--it has to be a floor, they're up too many stories for it to _actually_ be a dirt floor-- and Pearl tries not to step too hard as she makes her way over. Sure enough, there's a little door there, leading to an area with a sink and a fridge and a stove and a small square of counter space that must've been scrubbed until it's a completely different color from everything else.

Pearl sets the take-out bags there and opens the fridge. Mold greets her, and she gulps and closes it. The water from the sink sputters and gasps out gray for several seconds before settling into something more appropriately water-like; Pearl shuts it off with a grimace. She's _never_ drunk tap water before, but if Marina offers, she's damn well not gonna insult her by refusing.

Across the ugly dirt floor--Pearl's just gonna call it that, since there's no hope of actual tiles in sight--is a doorless opening that leads to a closet, a bathroom almost as small as the kitchen, and the bedroom. Pearl finds Marina there, lying flat on her back, not even on the questionably stained pile of blankets she used under the bridge. "Rina?" Pearl asks.

"This is _mine."_ Marina whispers. She presses her hands against her eyes; her tentacles are spread around her, like she needs all the contact she can get. "It's _real,_ I have a _place_ now, I---I _belong_."

Words stick in Pearl's throat, telling Marina to stay with her, that this place is a dump, that she needs to get off that carpet before she gets a disease, but she can't say them. Not when Marina's so happy at having something for herself that she's pinching herself.

No matter how much Pearl doesn't want Marina to leave, and _oof_ , that hurts. It's not as though the band'll break up once Marina isn't forced to live with Pearl, not like she'll lose the only friend she's had in _years,_ but Marina sits up and frowns at Pearl. "What?"

"This place _stinks_ , Rina," she says before she can stop herself.

Marina sighs. "Yeah. I'll air it out tomorrow and start cleaning everything. It'll be fine once it's had some CLT."

"Gonna need more than TLC." Pearl emphasizes the letter's proper order. "Got a spare key? I'll stop by with supplies." Like enough bleach to sanitize a salmonid. "You sure you wanna stay here tonight? You don't have curtains. Any loser could peek in and--"

Marina leaps to her feet and wraps Pearl in a hug. "I'll be fine," she mutters into Pearl's head; has she always been this tall? Pearl's nose is almost in Marina's collarbone, and she smells of applewood soap, and Pearl hugs Marina back. "I've dealt with a _lot more_ than some dirt and mold."

Pearl believes it, but she doesn't want to let go. She doesn't want to go back to that big, drafty house, with only servants she's not allowed to know the names of. But her parents are coming home soon, and her relatives will be visiting for Squidmas and staying until next year, and really, Marina's spent her whole life in some sort of shit cult that took her out of school at _nine_ and told her she was too deformed to ever amount to anything without them. She needs to stand on her own and know she can, without Pearl propping her up. And now that she's not gonna be sleeping on the streets and eating from the trash, it's safe enough to let her.

But Pearl doesn't let Marina go. She doesn't want to. What if Marina—what if...

Marina lets go and takes a step back. “Our agent—that's a word I never expected to say—will be meeting us tomorrow, right? Noon?”

Pearl nods. “We'll meet at eleven at makomart?” Her throat feels thick, and she coughs to clear it.

“Absolutely.” Marina spins in a circle, hugging herself. “We're going to be _famous_. It's just—there's no way this is real.”

That makes Pearl laugh. “Real as it gets, Rina. This is as real as it gets.”


	13. Celebrate

**Celebrate**

_Independence is a wonderful thing  
_ _But don't strive for it too hard.  
_ _Everything has been done before._  
 _Finding someone to support it;  
_ _Now, that's the challenge._

Pearl sits at one of the tables at the edges of the ballroom, sipping champagne that makes her want to sneeze and wearing the world's second most uncomfortable dress (the most uncomfortable, with its lace and sequins and corset, is mostly in pieces on her bedroom floor, though a few scraps are being used in place of fucking ribbons in her hair). Her parents glide around the dance floor, the picture of elegance in lace; many of her aunts and uncles and cousins do the same. Her littlest relatives, still blobby with youth, play games around and under the buffet tables stretched across the back of the room.

Though none have knocked an entire bowl of punch on themselves yet. Only Pearl's ever had _that_ honor.

Someone settles into a chair beside Pearl. "I swear, my tentacles are gonna outright tear if I swing one more time," says Granny Pygmy. "What mischief have you been up to, youngin'?"

Pearl grins at her Granny. "More of the same. Can I get you a drink?"

"Already got little Oyster taking care of it. Thank you, dearie," she says, leaning over to accept it from one of her blobbish cousins. Granny reaches in with two fingers, plucks out a frozen juice cube, and puts it in her beak, then dumps the rest of the glass over Oyster's head, to his giggling delight. "Now get me another.

Oyster scampers off. Pearl leans back in her chair. "I wish I could get away with that."

"I'm old and senile and he's still ink with legs. We can get away with it. Now, 'More of the same' isn't an answer." She crunches the cube. "I set aside bail money when you were in that metal group, and it's still there."

Pearl winces. “How'd you know I wasn't still in the metal group?”

“Because your negotiations for attending the party this year didn't include wearing the crud that nearly made your Uncle Sepio faint last year.” She uses two tentacles to frame her face, all innocent-like. “And last year, someone else's clothes weren't in Illexia's room. Who's your friend?”

“Damnit,” Pearl mutters. She'd bought Marina clothes several times during the month and a half she stayed here, despite Marina's protests. She thought Marina'd accepted it all when she moved out, especially since she didn't protest when Pearl cleaned and furnished her apartment as a squidmas gift.

“Well?” Granny's eyes sparkle and she leans forward. “Who's your _friend?”_

Oyster shows up with another drink. Pearl grabs it before Granny can, hands Granny an ice cube, gulps down three swallows and dumps the rest on Oyster's head, to his shrieking giggles. “Get us two this time,” Granny says to him. As Oyster runs off shrieking, Granny turns to Pearl and demands, “Well?”

Pearl sighs and rubs her eyes. “Her name is Marina,” Pearl says. “She's sixteen, pretty obviously a runaway from one of those cults that think Octarians are still around, and I think she was born wrong. One of her tentacles doesn't grow, and she doesn't have enough.”

Granny hmmmm's. “Not exactly the sort of person your parents would have you hang around with--”

“But Gran, she's got the most _amazing_ voice,” Pearl interrupts, leaning forwards. “And she grew up speaking some other language, so her accent sounds like tumbling rocks, which is _super_ fresh. She's more comfortable singing in it, too, so when we—we're a band together, we've been working on stuff, and--”

Granny covers Pearl's mouth with one finger. “She sounds lovely.” Granny pauses a moment, to be sure Pearl will be quiet. “You're in a band together? Have you had any success with being noticed this time?”

Pearl's grin gets wider, but before she can say anything, her mother calls for silence. “Our dear Pearlie has asked us to play music from the radio for the next ten minutes. I believe she wishes us to be more in touch with the common people.” Quiet laughter spreads through the room—the quality of it varies by the person, with most of her relatives on Pearl's side of the debate and the others laughing _at_ Pearl's naivety—but Pearl only smiles.

Granny raises one eyebrow but waits. It isn't long. Ebb and Flow starts playing two minutes in—her and Marina's voices, with the drums and guitar, on the radio. Playing for her entire family.

The room goes silent except for the radio. Pearl has to fight to keep from singing along. They have an agent now—a small timer, someone who was willing to work with Marina in person and Pearl over the phone before they knew Pearl was a Houzuki—but they're not going to be small time for long. Not with songs this fresh.

When it's over, and the announcer starts talking, Pearl's mother sniffs loud enough to be heard throughout the room. “Well!” she says, turning to Pearl's father, her skirts flaring out and her tentacles stiff, “I hardly expected something so--”

“ _Fresh,_ ” interrupts one of Pearl's uncles. He walks onto the dance floor. “That was quite a piece of music, wasn't it?”

“Of course it was,” says Pearl's mom. “I was just expecting something more, well, _traditional._ ”

“Well, they can't be like the Squid Sisters and rip off Calamari County's old tune,” says one of Pearl's aunts. She raises her glass to the room at large. “Not the way you'd do things, I know, but isn't it this _originality_ that got our family raising zapfish to begin with, sister?”

“Well, I suppose--”

“Then let's celebrate Pearl's budding musical career!” Granny leaps to her feet and snatches a glass from someone, then raises it in a toast. “To Pearl and her partner—you said the other singer's name was Marina, right?”

Pearl's blushing so hard her vision's pink around the edges as she nods, and her family toasts her, and Granny leans down and says, in her ear, “Illexia has been looking for a reason to avoid your parents. If your friend needs that room again, just say the word, it's hers.”


	14. New

**New**

_One's education is never complete.  
_ _There will always be something you don't know--  
_ _And something others have yet to learn,  
_ _No matter how obvious.  
_ _Never be ashamed of lack of knowledge.  
_ _Seek to correct it.  
_ _You never know what tiny piece of information will grow our fortune._

Pearl yawns and fights to keep her eyes open as she waits for the train. Marina will be here soon, and then they'll drive to Pearl's house, and this had _better_ be worth it.

She sits down, just for a minute, and next thing she knows someone nudges her shoulder. Pearl groans and opens her eyes.

Marina stands there, a tiny smile on her face. Her goggles are perched on her forehead, her headphones keep the chill from her ears, but other than that she looks like a marshmallow. Puffy coat, puffy pants, even her tentacles are wrapped in warmers. "Sleep well?" she asks.

Pearl yawns and grabs Marina's hand, lets Marina hoist her to her feet. "Very," she says. "You ready?"

"You still haven't told me what all the fuss is about," Marina says, keeping hold of Pearl's hand.

"It's a surprise." Pearl opens the car door with a flourish. "After you, milady."

Marina giggles, because that's how she acts when Pearl is silly around her, and slides in.

The ride passes quickly (Pearl dozes through it), and they reach her house just after sunrise. Pearl leads Marina not into the house, but around it, where the helicopter's waiting, the captain leaning against it. He gives her a thumbs up.

Marina squeals. "We're riding in a helicopter?!"

"The splatfest next week is snowmen and sandcastles," Pearl says. "We've made plenty of snowmen--" she jerks her head at the dozens that cover the yard-- "but you've _never_ made a sandcastle! So we're going to the beach to fix that."

Marina grabs Pearl in a hug so hard Pearl's feet are lifted off the ground. "I get to _fly_ ," Marina whispers. "I get to—to—I never even _dreamed_ about this."

It takes Pearl a moment to free her hands enough to hug back. "Helicopters are pretty cool," she admits. "And you'll like the beach. Now put me down so we can go!"

Marina sets Pearl down and steps back, blushing. "Sorry. I, I didn't mean to."

Pearl waves a hand. Her cheeks are burning; why is that? "Come on! You wanna sit up front?"

Pearl hasn't seen that expression on Marina's face since Squidmas. “ _Can I?”_ she breathes, her hands clasped before her. “Is—is this _real?_ Really, really real? I mean—I mean, it can't be, but—”

“Wouldn't've asked if the answer was no,” Pearl says, shoving Marina in. “Introduce yourself to the pilot, now; we've gotta go!”

Pearl takes her own spot in the back and settles on the pillow she'd brought. The flight will take nearly an hour; she can sleep through it. Or she thought she could.

She spends the entire time watching Marina and the pilot instead. Because Marina is just... her tentacles waving and twisting and curling, her face alight, she's  _adorable._ Pearl wants to take Marina's face in her hands and—but no. They're musical partners, and Marina's still finding her feet in Inkopolis. Besides, everything about this—their friendship, their music—it's all too new.

How old is Marina now, anyway? She said she was sixteen when they met, but that was in October. She could be seventeen now, and Pearl's nearly twenty. That's not too much of a gap. But Pearl's stomach squirms at the thought. It's best to just focus on sandcastles, today.

Let the future take care of itself.


	15. Fangirl

**Fangirl**

_Never let another's treatment alter your view of yourself.  
_ _There will always be those who love and disdain you.  
_ _What matters is what you think of yourself._  
_And never let your feelings affect how you treat others.  
_ _Love and hate are tiring in equal measure._

Marina's dancing in place as they wait in line. Pearl elbows her. "We're almost at the front. What do you want?"

"Are the crabcakes here good? I haven't tried—oh, they're doing Calamari Inkantation!" She bounces on her toes and leans out into the plaza. "Um..."

Pearl bites back a laugh. Marina's so cute when she's excited. "You won the last match, I'm buying, get us a table. I'm gonna bring the food over and stack it high and stable."

"That one needs work, Pearlie." With that, Marina's off, and Pearl has to take a deep breath. Pearlie. Marina doesn't know her parents call her that--Marina's never _met_ Pearl's parents--she doesn't know Pearl hates it.

And Marina doesn't make Pearl feel like a no-nothing kid when she says it, either, so it's fine. And she's off watching the Squid Sisters. By the time Pearl gets there, Marina'll be surrounded by other squids who chose fancy parties as better than costume parties. She won't want Pearl around when she has all those new friends; Pearl'll have to find someone else to hang out with for the rest of splatfest.

Which is fine. It's fine, it's fine, Marina deserves a million friends, and Pearl isn't jealous at all, which is why she orders enough food for a dozen people. So Marina and her friends'll have enough to share. And maybe let her stick around, even though she's on the other team.

But when Pearl finds Marina, Marina is alone, standing by a small square table that'd fit no more than four, bouncing on her toes and cheering on the Squid Sisters. Pearl shoulders her way over, trying to balance both overflowing trays. “Yo! You ready to eat or what?”

Marina ducks her head, but she's grinning. “So I'm eating with the enemy, now?”

Pearl rolls her eyes. “It's just a splatfest, Rina,” she says, even though every squid she knows takes it serious as death. She drops into one seat and sets down both trays, overflowing with crabcakes and fries and cake and ice cream and drinks. She stuffs a fry in her mouth. “Nothing but an excuse for some fun!”

Marina stares at all the food and sits across from Pearl, leaving two sides free. “We're going to make ourselves sick.”

“Worth it. Dig in.”

Pearl eats another fry and watches Marina hesitate for just a second, her eyes going first to the crab cakes, then to her smoothie, before she pulls the massive bowl of ice cream closer and applies herself like it's the last thing she'll ever eat. Pearl eats some more fries, snags a crab cake, and glances at the stage. The squid sisters are on break; in a moment, they'll show up, food in hand, and go eat with people on their side.

When Pearl was younger, she'd sometimes dream about being the Inkopolis News Singer Host. This is the second year the Squid Sisters have hosted; before them was the Jelly Jam, and before them Clowning Choral. Most of the bands have broken up, and she knows she's never gonna get the spot now, not on merit instead of stinking _connections_ , but... Pearl's train of thought breaks as she spots the squid sisters, together, walking towards her.

Towards _them_ , members of two different teams eating together.

No way. There's no way.

But then Callie drops into one of the remaining seats. Pearl almost inhales her soda; Marina chokes on her crabcake. “Whew. Looks like you two know how to party!”

And then Marie's clearing her throat from the other side of the table. “Is this seat taken? We don't see squids from different teams eating together that often, and we'd love to spend our break chatting with you.”

A squeak of excitement escapes Pearl, but it's nothing compared to how Marina's clearly having a fangirl-induced heart attack. “C'mon, siddown! You can  _totally_ eat with us!” And then, because Marina still looks like she's going to turn squid from excitement, she adds, “We're in a band too, ya know, and we're gonne be even  _better_ than you soon, so you'd better!"

That snaps Marina out of it. “ _Pearl!”_

“What?” Pearl tries to act normal.

Marina reaches up and brushes her short tentacle out of her face. “You can't just--”

“Just did,” says Pearl. She may be faking confidence, but no one knows that, and someone in their band needs it. “Face it, Rina, we're awesome.”

Marina buries her face in her hands, and Pearl shoves out the last chair for Marie to sit down. This is... exciting, okay, but she has to hold it together. Marina sings Squid Sisters songs when she's building sand castles, turns on her phone to watch the news every two hours to see them, can recite any facts about them without a  _second_ of hesitation. One of them can't fangirl about it. Besides, Pearl  _hates_ how people treat her differently all the time for being rich. The squid sisters probably have a similar thought to people's freak-outs all the time.

Sure enough, Marie laughs. "Fellow musicians, even. This is going to be a good meal. Callie, stop stealing their chips.

Pearl bites back laughter as Callie takes another off Marina's plate. Marina's stuttering, her face ink-blushed and she keeps playing with her malformed tentacle, and Pearl can't just let her off easy when she's being _this_ adorable--er, flustered. If she doesn't learn how to handle it, how will she handle their fans? Fans ask all sorts of awkward questions.

So when they introduce themselves, Pearl adds, "Marina's your biggest fan."

" _Pearl!"_ Marina crushes the crab cake she was holding.

But Callie's smiling at Pearl, grinning in that infectious way she has, and Pearl's heart flip-flops. She's got a signed Squid Sisters CD, their first album, and had posters up around her room for over a year and spent the first three months they were on the news watching the way Marina does, all because of Callie's smile.

If someone had bragged about her to Callie when _she_ was seventeen, she would've been flustered as shit but glowing and bragging about it even now, at the ripe old age of almost-twenty. She'd probably brag about it until the Squid Sisters were as much old news as Turf War veterans.

So Pearl turns straight to Marina and says, "You can sing Calamari Inkantation _backwards_ ," because Marina did, for the shock of it, when Pearl would've toppled their sandcastles unless Marina convinced her otherwise. "You told me it changed your life."

"Because it _did_ ," Marina cries, her shyness over, and the Squid Sisters take it from there, and before Pearl knows it she's learning how Marina stopped putting seaweed in her hair and ran away after hearing the Squid Sisters concert and her goggles broke.

Pearl shudders at the thought of _seaweed_ as a _hair accessory_ \--seriously, Marina's squidhood was wack--and Callie steals a fry from Pearl's plate and asks, "So how'd you two become bandmates?"

"Pearl has the most amazing voice," Marina says, and Pearl's mouth drops open. "We met by chance, on a hike, and then I went back there every day for a week after hearing her hum, because it's just--it's got something really, um, really..." Pearl stares at Marina as she looks at the table and fiddles with the straw in her smoothie. "Special," Marina finishes at last.

Marina thinks--wha?

"And the next time I went up there, she was singing, and, _cod_ , I--I mean---she's just really good, is all," Marina finishes, still fiddling with her straw.

Pearl's got her breath (and brain) back now, so she waves her arms. " _Me?_ You're the one with the killer voice, Rina. I've got rapping bars, but you've got everything else. Cept--" money, Pearl almost said, but her brain catches up to her mouth and she coughs. "Cept you _still_ act like a little squidling at splatfests," she finishes instead. That won't embarrass either of them.

"Don't listen to her, she's better than me," Marina says. "At almost everything."

"I'm also the idiot who tries to use a snowboard and duct tape to surf waterfalls," Pearl mutters.

Marie giggles and covers her mouth with one hand. Callie winks at Pearl. "Sounds like you two have a great partnership. Maybe you'll even rival us someday."

Pearl chokes on her milkshake. Marina waves her hands, her eyes wide. "No, no, never!" she babbles as Pearl coughs. "I don't think anyone will _ever_ be as good as you two! You wrote _Calamari Inkantation!_ "

"We are _totally_ gonna be better than them some day, Rina," Pearl says once she can breathe again.

"That's not--"

"Sounds like we've got rivals, Cal," says Marie. "We'll have to keep an eye on these two."

"Sounds like a plan," says Callie. She reaches out and grabs Marina's hand, pumping it in an enthusiastic handshake. "It was super meeting you," she says, releasing Marina and grabbing Pearl's hand. "But we've _gotta_ get back on stage."

And then the two of them get up and leave, leaving Pearl and Marina staring at each other, all the fries eaten and Pearl has no _idea_ what to do after that. That was--Callie, her childhood crush, her--Pearl's gonna need a few minutes.


	16. Image

**Image**

_You cannot control how other people see you,  
_ _But you can control what they see._  
_You're a Houzuki.  
_ _Make sure everyone knows it._

"There we go." Pearl swipes her card and grabs the bags. "Now you've got some proper clothes for being the intro band."

"I have proper clothes for being an intro band every day of the week." Marina shakes her head. “I really don't need all this, Pearl.”

Pearl waves one hand and grabs the bags. “Who said anything about need? I _want_ to buy these things for ya, Rina. And I can. So you're just gonna have to deal.”

Marina shakes her head again, but she's smiling. She grabs Pearl's hand—and the bags—tugging them from Pearl's grip. “Fine, but you're not allowed to drag them on the ground, Pearlie.”

Pearl flushes hot. “I am  _not_ dragging them on--”

“Whenever your arm gets tired it gets lower and lower and the bottoms of the bags drag. They're big bags, but you can't carry things at shoulder height all the time.”

Pearl scowls but releases the bags. Marina carries them with one hand. “So we've got our outfits, our songs, and everything set up,” Pearl says, half-jogging to keep up with Marina's long stride. Marina looks straight ahead. She's been like this all day, staring off in the distance, her lips pressed together in thought whenever Pearl's not distracting her. Pearl doesn't like it. “We're gonna  _splat_ this concert.”

Marina smiles, but her face stays tense. The tips of her tentacles are squirmy. She's still wearing the headphones—they were Pearl's headphones once, but she doesn't think Marina's taken them off since Pearl jammed them on Marina's head and dragged Marina off the streets—and she touches the cord a couple times, adjusts their fit. Pearl frowns. Whatever's bugging Marina, it's not going away just cause of a distraction.

So Pearl leads them to their favorite restaurant and waves at the waitress who knows the drinks they always get and that they want her to surprise them with the food and tip  _really_ well--especially if Marina hasn't tried it before and she gets that look on her face--and settle in a booth in a back corner where Marina has a clear view of the door but it'll be hard for people to notice them when they're famous. They've scarce sat down before Na--the waitress Pearl  _definitely_ can't name puts their drinks in front of them. "Surprise you again?" she asks, clicking her pen.

"Please," Marina says.

As soon as their waitress goes away, Pearl grabs Marina's leg under the table. "What's wrong?"

Marina's tentacles still. "What makes you think--"

"I'm rich, not stupid, Rina," Pearl says. Marina fiddles with her headphones; she's been doing that since her goggles broke. Pearl squeezes her knee. "What's wrong?"

Marina glances around, though there isn't anyone within three tables of them, and lowers her voice. "What if they don't like me?"

Pearl's jaw drops. Of all the-- "Why the  _fuck_ wouldn't people like you?" Pearl demands. Marina flinches, and Pearl lowers her voice, takes her hand off Marina's knee. "You're fucking amazing, Rina."

Marina stares at her drink and twirls the straw a few times. "No one has asked me for my autograph alone," she says. "You just hand me the paper when they ask you. The reviews call me 'exotic' and other things, all code for 'we can't think of anything actually good to say.' And..." Marina crushes the tip of the straw.

Pearl clenches her hands under the table. "They're idiots, is what it is."

Marina lowers her voice even further. "I know I'm... different," she almost whispers. "I know I can... can sing, and, and everything, but I'm holding you back."

Pearl's stomach drops. Her hearts pound.

Marina takes a deep breath. Keeps playing with her straw. "I think--

"Well, first of all, fuck that," Pearl interrupts. She  _has_ to interrupt, she has to keep Marina from finishing that thought, because she's been here before. It's not the intense anger of her last band's break-up, or the 'college is more important' of the one before that, or the apathetic 'I have more important things to do, like boys' before that, or... but she knows what's coming. If she can keep Marina from saying it... “You're just as good as me, Rina.  _Better_ in lots of ways. I can't play keytar.”

Marina looks up. “Pearl--”

“Plus, people are really fucking judgemental about _anyone_ who isn't fresh,” Pearl says. “You haven't been in Inkopolis long enough to know that 'fresh' changes every couple months, and unless you wanna spend money fast enough even I find it silly, you can't keep up.” She grabs for Marina's hand, rescues the poor destroyed straw, and takes a deep breath. “We've _got_ something together, Rina,” she confesses. She still has Marina's hand. “We haven't even been together a year, and we've made it further than my last three groups combined.”

Marina shifts so she's holding Pearl's hand. Her hand is soft, and callused in places Pearl doesn't expect, and it's  _warm_ and  _wonderful_ and Pearl swallows past a dry throat. 

“I ran away,” Marina almost whispers. “I know this can't last. I'll have to go home at some point, Pearl. They'll-they'll make me. And it's better if--”

“Fuck that,” Pearl says, and gives Marina's hand a squeeze. Marina squeezes back. “You don't gotta do anything you don't wanna, understand? We're a band—a team. Your problems are my problems, got it?”

“Am I interrupting something?” asks their server, and Pearl snatches her hand back, clears her throat. Her cheeks are hot and she can't look at anyone as some sort of ramen is set before her (it looks _delicious)_.

“No, we're fine,” Marina says calmly.

Pearl risks a sideways glance at their server. She's got her lips pressed together, but the corners of her mouth are turned up anyway. “All right them. This is Oyster Teriyaki Ramen. I'll be back later to learn what you think of it.” And then she turns away, stops halfway, and turns back. “And, um, if it's not too much trouble... are you  _the_ Pearl and Marina? Who wrote Ebb and Flow?”

“That's us,” Pearl says, forcing a smile.

Marina nods.

“Which one of you sings in that other language?” she asks, pulling her notepad out of her apron pocket. “Because that is _so good_ , I never hear that anywhere else and it's just super fresh, how the two languages means I can understand them both even though I only know what one's actually saying, just 'cause I can fill in the other half by the emotions, and--”

“I sing in Inklish,” Pearl says, raising an eyebrow at Marina.

Marina looks at her place, blushing, as their waitress shoves her notepad and pen in Marina's hands.


	17. Importance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's all focus on things in fiction for a while, it's more pleasant.

**Importance**

_Everything is in reach.  
_ _The only thing stopping you is you.  
_ _Yes, there are laws.  
_ _Yes, there are rules.  
_ _Some are even good ones.  
_ _But you're a Houzuki._  
 _You don't need to obey them. Not the bad ones, the wrong ones.  
_ _Not the ones that stand in your way._

Marina sings Calamari Inkantation under her breath; Pearl's standing right next to her and can barely hear her as they wave to their driver and start up the mountain. “What path should we take today?” Pearl asks Marina. “We've done blue circle and green triangle already.”

“Then let's do orange star,” Marina says in rhythm, and Pearl snickers.

“You chose that one because you don't think I'll be able to put 'orange' in a rap.”

“Maybe.”

That doesn't stop Pearl from trying. As they make their way down the trail, past orange stars painted on trees and flowers and clambering over a log that's fallen across the path, Pearl spits out failed rhyme after failed rhyme. Marina listens, throwing in her own bad rhymes sometimes and giggling at Pearl others. Mostly, though, she looks distracted, her eyes on the trees around them.

Marina hiked Mount Nantai with her family when she was a squidling, she told Pearl once. She keeps hoping to find the trail. From the little she's said about them, hiking might be her _only_ pleasant memory of the hellhole she grew up in.

But then they reach a clearing and Marina's eyes widen and she rushes over. There's a pile of boulders in the center, left over from some natural disaster or another, and she circles it. “This is amazing,” Marina says.

“Not the path from before, then?” Pearl asks, though she knows the answer. She trots over to the boulders herself. “Come on, the view from the top is amazing.”

“From top?” Marina asks, as Pearl starts clambering up. “Is—is that allowed?”

“Of course it is,” Pearl says, though she has no idea. “Come on up.”

Marina puts one hand on her headphones. “I mean, well, for _you_ it is, but--”

“Rina.” Pearl's feet are level with Marina's head, but she jumps down and grabs her hand. “Come on.” Someday, she is going to find the people who did this to Marina. Who made her terrified of Turf War, and scared to talk to strangers, and just, well, afraid of everything. Marina'll stop in her tracks to help a stranger who jumped off a waterfall, fix broken equipment without being asked or expecting thanks, and give half her lunch to beggars on the street. She's the nicest person Pearl knows, and someone did their best to destroy her.

Someday, she's going to find them, and splat them.

Right now, though, she starts climbing again; she's done this a million times, she doesn't need both hands. She pulls until Marina climbs too, though she has to let go: Marina clings to the rocks with hands and tentacles, her gorgeous eyes filled with worry until they reach the top-- just big enough for the two to sit side by side--and Marina gasps.

The view from up here is _almost_ as good as the one from the top of the mountain. It's a perfect view of Inkopolis's Skyline, and if Pearl squints, she can almost see the flashing lights of the splatfest.

Or maybe it's not 'almost', because Marina asks, her voice soft, "How can anyone _choose?"_

Pearl nudges her. "Same way they do for any splatfest, I guess. Everyone has opinions."

"But this isn't like saying how you'd like to dress, or weather, or whatnot," Marina says. She clutches her hands tight together. "The Squid sisters... Callie and Marie are _people_. They're family--close family. Close friends."

"I couldn't choose either, Rina," Pearl says. She reaches over and waves her fingers in among Marina's, until Marina's holding Pearl's hand instead of her own. "This splatfest just stinks. Everyone's taking it way too seriously."

Marina sputters a laugh. "Every splatfest's serious, Pearl. Didn't you read the splatfest stuff? Whoever wins this is legally better than the other. That has to change something."

Pearl rolls her eyes and squeezes Marina's hand. "They repeat splatfests a lot, the popular ones--or close enough. Cookies and pies, cake and cookies, things like that. No one takes them seriously. It's just a way that, if people are arguing about something dumb and _stuck_ on it, one person can say 'Splatfest ruling was this' and end it."

"Dumb?" Marina asks, glancing at Pearl.

Pearl lets herself smile. "Like, say your insistence that ice cream is better than cake."

"Oh, it totally is," Marina says, then catches herself and grins at Pearl. "But this is still... it's not right."

"It's not," Pearl agrees. "But it's their last one, they wanted to do something tense, and they've been talking about doing things separate, like movies and TV, even as they sing together. This just means one of them'll have a trumped up 'Splatfest Voted Superior' sticker on their stuff."

That gets Marina to laugh.

They're still holding hands. Pearl's whole body burns with the awareness of it. Sitting on top of a pile of rocks, so close their legs brush, staring at the view and Pearl doesn't want to move. She wants to stay here, this close to Marina, forever.

Marina sighs. "I wish we could stay here forever," she murmurs, echoing Pearl. "But it'll be getting dark soon. We've got to head back."

"Not if we go camping," Pearl says. She doesn't want this to end.

And Marina squeezes her hand. "We don't have a tent or anything. It gets cold up here at night. Let's get down."


	18. Begin

**Begin**

_You were born different, born unique,  
_ _Born a Houzuki.  
_ _That puts you above the common rabble._  
 _Never mind what they think.  
_ _You're above them._

Long sleeved top, ripped jeans, black boots with chains dangling off them, and a crown. Pearl turns away from the mirror, hesitates, then turns back to it.

Beside her, Marina does the same. "This was a bad idea," she whispers, her hands shaking as she adjusts her headphones again, and again, and again.

Pearl wants to agree. "If we get through this, if we do well, we'll be host of Inkopolis News," she reminds Marina. "The Squid Sisters wanted us to try this. You won't disappoint them, will you?" It's a dirty thing to say, but it's all Pearl can manage. She loves live shows, hearing their voices entwined on the radio, but trying to project that same enthusiasm in front of a green screen knowing the entire world might watch...

Maybe she shouldn't've had a second bowl of chocolate frosted booyahbombs. Or _any_ lunch.

"I don't," Marina whispers. "I can't. But maybe--maybe this is a bad idea." She adjusts her headphones again.

Someone knocks on the door of their dressing room. "Try-outs!" calls someone, opening it. He smiles at them. "You both look wonderful. Callie and Marie already did the morning news, telling everyone that today was the fourth day of new host trials. I think all Inkopolis is excited to see the final candidates today!"

Two of Pearl's hearts stop. She can only imagine how Marina will feel. "All it is is reading," she mutters. Not that that'll help Marina any. "Introduce ourselves, read, and then wait in the window room until we do it again."

"We can do this." Marina sounds faint. She and Pearl have made flashcards and practiced with every stage and mode until they have them down cold, teasing each other and laughing and giving joking player tips after every rehearsal for a month. She reaches for Pearl's hand; Pearl grabs it and squeezes. "Let's do this," she says.

Once they're in the recording studio, Pearl calms down. There's a camera in front of them, teleprompter above it, a fake microphone by Pearl because she raps and fake turntables in front of Marina for flavor. They've practiced in parks, Pearl's bedroom, Marina's cruddy apartment now that the smell is gone; this room may as well be just another temporary space, a 'we don't wanna bother going to the recording studio' set-up.

Maybe she relaxes too much, because after they announce the last stage, Pearl says, "I want to ask every charger to stop sniping me here."

And maybe Marina's relaxed, too, because she chimes in without hesitation: "You can ask, but I'm pretty sure they're not gonna listen."

...wait.

“And—and that's all the time we've got!” Pearl sputters leaping to her feet.

Marina leaps up, too, and trades a glance with Pearl, just as wide-eyed and scared again as before. “Until next time...”

“Don't get cooked, stay off the hook!” they recite together, and then the camera clicks off and Pearl swipes a hand across her face. “Oh cod,” she mutters.

“We royally screwed up,” Marina says, clutching her tentacles in her hands and tugging on them. “Our _first day_ and we already screwed up.”

“Maybe we should just leave,” Pearl mutters into her hands. “Sneak out and--”

The door swings open and bangs against the wall, interrupting her. “You two did a great job!” says Callie of the Squid Sisters, and Pearl picks her head up fast, watching wide-eyed as Callie dances in. She's gotten changed from her performance wear, she's got on jeans and a Bob Dub sweatshirt, and she grabs Pearl's hands and twirls her around. “Everyone loved you!” she says, as Pearl staggers around, starting to grin despite herself.

“But—we went off script,” Marina says. Pearl glances at her; she's got the starstruck look on her face, but just like they talked about, she's trying not to show it. “We, uh--”

Callie hugs her, and Marina stops talking. Pearl can't blame her. Being hugged by a member of the Squid Sisters would be awesome for _any_ fan, and Marina downright worships them. “You did great,” Callie says, releasing Marina. She takes one of Marina's hands, turns and grabs one of Pearl's. “Come on, there are drinks and snacks in the viewing room!”

The viewing room? Where all Inkopolis can see them?

“Uh,” Peal says, but Callie's a LOT stronger than she looks, towing them both along behind her even without Pearl's cooperation. Marina's too dazed and delighted that Callie's touching her for any sort of response, and Pearl can't just let her face this alone, so when Callie opens the door and pushes Marina in, Pearl follows, one heart in her throat.

The room has a table, a couple chairs, a cooler with some drinks under the table and a selection of snacks along one wall. It also has a wall that's just one big window, facing Inkopolis Plaza. Inklings stand with their faces pressed against it, more behind them, and Pearl has just enough time to exchange a bewildered glance with Marina before someone taps on the glass.

Pearl looks.

This room must be hella soundproofed, because lips are moving in silence. And inklings are waving their arms. And then Callie laughs, and presses a button, and the room is awash in so much sound that Pearl staggers backwards.

“You were great!”

“Marina! Marina! Your hair is SUPER FRESH!”

“I am so sick of chargers!”

“Could you sing for us?”

“I was expecting you to swear, not gonna lie.”

“Hi! HI!”

A grin spreads across Pearl's face. She steps forward and waves for all she's worth. Waves at her _fans_. With both hands, because that's what they expect from her. A glance at Marina shows her standing back, hands pressed over her mouth, eyes wide and still not concealing her smile, and that's fine for now.

Because soon enough, she's waving, too.


	19. Courage

**Courage**

_All steps must be taken alone.  
_ _There may be others beside you,_  
 _Pushing you, encouraging you,  
_ _But you must take the step yourself._

“It's not too late to back out.” Pearl waits on Marina's couch in squid form, idly twisting her tentacles together. “They know we're both _very_ busy these days, with concerts and songwriting and the news.” She wants to say they'll understand, but that'd be a lie. Her parents _never_ understand.

“I'm not going to back out, Pearl,” Marina calls from the bedroom. She opens the door and walks into the main room, and words die in Pearl's mouth. “They're your parents. They're important to you. I should meet them.”

She should. It was Marina who suggested it, Marina who asked, but Pearl's mom jumped on the chance to meet the person 'her little Pearlie has been spending all this time with' and, frankly, Pearl's scared shitless. Marina must've bought an outfit just for tonight and it's gorgeous, a high-collared sweater that matches her eyes under a black vest with elaborate golden embroidery, but it's fake gold and even the flowing skirt screams of a lower quality than Pearl's parents will accept. Even as Pearl can't tear her eyes from Marina.

It just isn't _fair_ for Marina to be this attractive right now.

Then she reaches up and tugs her shortest tentacle, and Pearl notices she's still wearing those old headphones, and she can breathe again. “Are you really, really sure? My parents aren't the nicest people.”

Marina raises one eyebrow. "I wasn't expecting _nice_ from anyone who raised you," she says, and Pearl's almost proud of that burn, except it's against her. "Besides, I'm some stranger. They'll probably be suspicious and testing me."

They'll probably polite and belittle Marina home crying, and Pearl doesn't know how she'll deal with that. Pearl lets out a long breath and watches Marina shrug on a coat. "If you're sure."

"I am."

The ride to Pearl's house is quiet. On a normal day, they'd be warming up their voices for rehearsal, or discussing how their days went--though the days they don't spend together on the news are getting fewer, they're definitely one of the top two groups people wanna see hosting--or planning their next hike, or making and drinking coffee, or arguing about things no one else cares about. But right now, Pearl's stomach is in knots. She can't think of anything but what's coming. She checks over the coffee-maker, making sure there are filters and the creamer in the fridge below isn't out of date, that the key to Marina's apartment is on the little hook behind the coffee maker, just out of something to do.

When the drive ends, Marina gets out first. She stops to smile at Pearl. "It really won't be that bad, Pearl. Promise."

"Shows what you know," Pearl grumbles, but gets out of the car as well.

They walk up the driveway and open the door, and Pearl thinks it's odd that her parents aren't waiting until she spies the clock. 6:01. They're late.

Pearl grabs Marina's jacket from her hand, tosses it in the general direction of the closet, and tows her along almost at a run. Pearl sheds her own jacket and tosses it on the floor, releases Rina's hand, and boots open the door.

The sound of it crashing against the far wall is the climactic drum signaling their entrance. Pearl's mother looks up from her mouthful of soup. “Pearl,” she says. “I see your continual inability to be on time has struck again.”

Pearl knows better than to make a comment about her mother's OCD punctuality that keeps her from waiting even _one minute_ but oh, is she tempted. “My fault,” she says. “I didn't watch the time. Mom, Dad, this is Marina. Rina, these are my parents.”

“It's a pleasure to meet Pearl's parents,” says Marina, and Pearl glances sideways to see Marina _bowing_. “Anyone who raised such an amazing person must be wonderful themselves.”

Pearl gapes at Marina, then glances at her mother. A trace of a smile edges her mother's lips. “Please, have a seat.”

There are two spots at the table with soup already waiting, next to each other. Pearl slides into her usual seat and picks up the spoon. She taught Marina which fork was which ages ago, but she still glances sideways until she sees Marina has the right spoon in hand.

No one says anything. They eat the soup in silence, studiously ignoring each other. Pearl can feel Marina's tentacles twitching beside her. At last, as the soup bowls are taken away, Marina asks, “So, Pearl tells me your family works with Zapfish. Can you tell me about them?”

Pearl's father laughs. “We're not the part of the family that concerns ourselves with _work_ so much,” he says, as the next course is brought out.

Pearl's mother frowns at him. “We do oversee some of the administrative aspects, but all of the hands-on work is handled by our more... _adventurous_ branches of the family.” The curl of her word turns 'adventurous' into 'irresponsible' or 'childish' or worse.

Pearl's mouth is dry. She glances at Marina, but if this has bothered Marina, she doesn't show it. Her face is stone. She takes three bites of salad before trying again, “You must be very proud of Pearl. She's a wonderful musician.”

Pearl chokes on some seaweed.

Pearl's mother sets down her fork and fixes Marina with a stare that would splat Judd. "Girl," she says, and Pearl almost goes to her room already, that tone has always led to her being punished, "we invited you because we wished to meet the charity case our darling Pearlie has been spending so much time with. It is _abundantly_ clear just by looking at you that you're encouraging pretensions we'd rather she'd long forgotten, and nothing you do will ever be to our level. Sit, eat--the food is no doubt quality you've never encountered before, and never will again--and be silent."

Pearl locks her eyes with her plate. If she says a word, she'll be sent to bed without supper—her, twenty-one years old and still afraid of that.

Marina pushes out her chair. "I apologize for cherishing your daughter for who she is, not as who you wish her to be," she says. "I believe I'm done here. Pearl, I'll see you tomorrow for practice."

Pearl drops her fork. She turns to Marina and stares, jaw agape, as Marina gets to her feet.

"What do you think you're doing, young lady?" demands her mother. "Sit right back down and--"

"No thank you," Marina says. "I'm going to get some food that doesn't come with free hatred. I have enough of that already." She straightens her skirt and almost _glides_ out of the room.

Pearl stares after her for several seconds, her brain stopped. She never thought about just _leaving_ before.

"Would you pass the salt, honey?" asks her father.

Pearl pushes away from the table and goes after Marina.


	20. Confidence

**Confidence**

_Who are you supporting in the splatfest?_

_Chirpy Chips all the way!_

_What, not even giving the new group a chance?_

_For real?  
_ _Seriously, there's nothing fresh about them._

_You're joking._

_Their music slaps, I'll give them that.  
_ _But—a Houzuki?  
_ _Bought her way in, no question.  
_ _And something about the tall girl bugs me._

_I think Pearl's trying to get her family to disown her._  
_And—the tall girl?  
_ _Keeping things fresh means making them different._

_Yeah, but not_ _ bad. _

"All right, Pearl," Marina says. "Get ready for the worst combination ever." She pushes open the changing room door.

Pearl has to laugh. Marina's wearing a green hoodie so bright it could glow in the dark and orange pants that flare at the thighs and shins, creating unsightly bulges, with low heeled black and silver boots that, frankly, would go with just about _anything_ else. Pearl laughs so hard she snorts. "How did you even find those?"

"I know, right?" She twirls, and the pants wobble like a dress tucked into socks. "Think I should wear this to next week's splatfest?"

"I think it'd guarantee they pick us for the next news hosts," Pearl says, not bothering to hide her smile. "But we've got outfits designed for it already." Having them make a splatfest to choose the next news hosts is perfect in Pearl's books: they get to perform with the Squid Sisters and sing at a splatfest even if they don't make it.

Marina laughs and ducks back into the room to get changed. She tosses the pants and shirt over the door to Pearl in crumpled balls, but she carries the boots out with her, almost clutching them. "Next store?" she asks, putting them on the rack and glancing at them again. "Are there even any left? Half the square's still got signs advertising grand openings in another month."

"There's gotta be some," Pearl says. "I need to use the bathroom, you go ahead." Soon as Marina's out of sight, Pearl grabs those boots and buys them, stashing them with her other purchases. Marina deserves nice things.

It takes Marina another hour to notice. "Pearl! We need to return these."

"Nuh-uh." Pearl grins up at Marina, who looks too pleased to be properly angry. "You tried them on with the day-glo top and the orange pants as part of that 'worst combination ever', remember? I saw your eyes. You _wanted_ them."

"But I don't _need_ them."

"Too bad. Oh, what's over here?"Pearl grabs the bag and takes off down an alley, towards a small business in the shadows there, before Marina can push the issue.

Marina chases after her, but Pearl doesn't pay any mind. How could she? This place is  _awesome_ . Weapons on the wall contrast with almost out of tune music that doesn't seem to know what it's doing, a bear statue behind the counter and pictures of Salmonids on the walls. Pearl's eyes almost pop out of her head as she turns, trying to see everything at once in the warm orangey lighting.

“Nice to see you squiddos.” Pearl jumps and spins. She didn't see anyone—and _still_ doesn't see anyone. “Are you looking to join the Grizzco Crew?”

There's a  _speaker_ hooked up to the  _bear statue_ that is the freshest thing ever. “This looks  _awesome!”_ Pearl cries. “Sign us up!”

“Pearl,” Marina says, but Pearl's already being pulled into the next room, where people give her a uniform and an employee manual and she gets changed with hands that tremble with excitement. A quick glance at the first page has her ink pumping: Salmonids are dangerous, and get more dangerous when they migrate, so their job is to discourage them from going to certain areas. This is gonna be _so awesome_.

Pearl pulls on the uniform, even the hat, and puts her clothing in her new locker with a sigh of regret for her crown. S he'd wear it, but even a glance at the uniform shows this'll be a dirty job.

When she emerges, Marina gives her a tight smile. "Did you read the manual?" she asks.

Pearl shakes her head, feeling dumbfounded. Marina isn't protesting this? Marina protests  _everything_ that might be physically difficult. "Did you?"

Marina nods, and that's a damn miracle right there. Whatever this job pays, Pearl's gonna donate every cent to charity. "Right, you four," says an inkling with a clipboard, and he waves them towards a boat and passes out weapons, and Pearl doesn't think Marina's ever used a blaster before but she just accepts it with a tense but  _real_ smile and wow.

Marina doesn't like turf war unless she's doing it with Pearl, but that's a game. This is something real--a way to prove herself, maybe, that she's not as useless as her idiot family told her she was because of that badly grown tentacle. Or maybe it's the no nonsense, dirty nature of the job, so unlike their singing. Whatever it is, if this goes well, Pearl's gonna make sure they work a  _lot_ more shifts.


	21. Price

**Price**

_Never take anything for granted,  
_ _And remember what you're giving up.  
_ _Money comes with life's ease,  
_ _But without struggle, you may never grow._  
 _Even friendship, love,  
_ _And fortune have their price._

The morning after the Splatfest, Pearl sits by Marina on a bench in front of the window and tries not to twitch. On another bench nearby, the other band sits, also waiting. Normally news broadcasts take place in the quiet enclosed green room, but the new building Inkopolis News is moving too will be open for people to watch while they do their segments, so this is a way to get used to it.

_If_ they move on. Whoever won the splatfest gets the job, replaces the Squid Sisters permanently, and win or lose, as soon as they leave the studio Pearl's taking Marina out for cake and ice cream and asking Marina if she'd like to be in a relationship. Because it's getting silly, now, the amount of time she's spent wanting Marina to be happy, and wanting to cuddle into her on the couch, and making excuses for them to spend time together—not that they need excuses, not with their job as musicians, they're together day in and day out but Pearl misses Marina every time they go home at night and she wants to buy Marina presents when it's not Squidmas and...

Yeah, Pearl's got it bad. She needs Marina to turn her down so she can get over it. Or agree, but Pearl won't think too much of that, because stuff that fresh doesn't happen to her.

“Come _on,”_ Pearl mutters under her breath. She knows not to fidget, not where everyone can see her, but they need to announce the results already.

Marina's fingers brush hers on the bench. Pearl glances down, moving only her eyes; Marina creeps her hand closer. As the Squid Sisters announce who they represented in the splatfest, Pearl takes Marina's hand and squeezes it.

“Woah!” says Callie, staring at the screen behind them.

“Gotta admit, I wasn't expecting that,” adds Marie.

Marina squeezes Pearl's hand back, and Pearl tries not to hope. Not for anything. Not to win this splatfest, not for Marina.

“Well, that's not all that matters, right Marie?”

"Of course not, Cal. Bet you anything your team had less turf war wins than mine."

"Loser buys the winner crabcakes?"

“All right! Let's see the battle results.”

Pearl squeezes Marina's hand harder; Marina squeezes back just as hard. Marina did reach for her hand when Marina was nervous, though. She does that a lot—reaches for Pearl, or glances at her when things that are good or bad or in between happen.

Pearl knows, because she's reaching and looking right back.

“And now for the final results!”

Pearl closes her eyes and holds her breath.

“Actually,” Marie interrupts, “we've been told you have to wait for the results.”

“ _ **WHAT?!”**_ Pearl shouts, same way Marina and even the other band does.

Callie laughs. “That's exactly why. You'll know who the new hosts are on Monday, because they'll be here.”

They can _not_ fucking string her along like this. Pearl leaps to her feet, ready to cut a fish, and Marina grabs her shoulders and pulls her back down, covers Pearl's mouth. “Not another _word,_ ” Marina whispers in her ear. “Not on air.”

Pearl squirms, tries to sputter out that she'll be good now, but Marina's not letting her go long enough to hear it. Not until Callie and Marie finish the broadcast, and then they're not on air, and Marina uncovers Pearl's mouth. “The _fuck--”_

Marina covers her mouth again. “Nope. Be civil.”

“Civil my foot,” Pearl grumbles behind the hand, along with several other choice words for people who think they can jerk around their potential employees this way, but she sees the inklings pointing at them through the glass as well as Marina can. And just because _Pearl_ doesn't care doesn't mean Marina doesn't. Marina cares about that sort of shit.

“You two, follow me,” says Marie, and Pearl sighs and stops grumbling so Marina will let go of her. She still does an exaggerated show of stomping off after Marie, though. She has a reputation to maintain.

Marie leads them past the dressing room they've been sharing with the Chirpy Chips and to the Squid Sister's dressing room. Pearl swallows hard as Marie pushes open the door. The room is cluttered, with sweatshirts draped over chairs and make-up brushes on the floor by their make-up tables, but it also has a couch and a couple comfy chairs by a low table on one side, making it a good place for them to relax out of view. Marie ambles over to the table, retrieves an electric kettle, and takes it to a small sink between the two make-up tables to fill.

Pearl turns around to see Marina behind her, gawking like it's her first day in Inkopolis again. Pearl places a hand on her arm, pretending not to notice how Marina jumps. “Snap out of hero mode,” Pearl mutters, letting go of Marina and shutting the door behind them. “Awesome musician and business squid time, not starstruck country squid time. Let her out when we go home.” They've more than talked about this; after the third time Marina froze up around the Squid Sisters, Pearl dragged her to her parent's mansion for a weekend of sleepovers and roleplaying the situation. It's even worked, mostly.

Though Pearl _really_ wants to sit in Callie's chair.

Instead, Marie waves them over to the couch. “How do you like your tea? I have milk, honey, and sugar.”

“I'll take it black, with two sugars, thank you,” Pearl says, settling onto the couch. Marina sits beside her, and Pearl steals a fast glance: no, she's not quite capable of speaking coherently yet. “Marina'll take a small dollop of milk and you can just empty the honey container into her cup.”

" _Pearl,"_ Marina grumbles, but it's quiet and there's no real heat behind it.

Marie covers her mouth with one hand, coughing--laughing, Pearl's near sure--a few times. "Extra honey it is." She hums under her breath as she stands and moves about the room, tidying things here and there, and just for something to talk about, Pearl asks, "New song?"

"A work in progress."

The kettle boils at last, and Marie pours out four cups of tea just as Callie joins them with a plate of cookies. Marie takes a sip of tea and says, “You must be wondering who won.”

“No _shit,”_ Pearl agrees.

Marina places one hand on Pearl's leg, and Pearl shuts up. She knows a threat to gag her again when she feels one. Besides, Marina's recovered from her fangirl freak-out enough to say, “Inkopolis management must think the suspense will drive up ratings. But if we'll be here on Monday, or not, then surely we need to know?”

Pearl could kiss her for phrasing it so well. This afternoon, right after this, ice cream, talk, and she just might get to do that.

Callie grabs her cup of tea and puts her feet up on the table. “There's something in the final contracts, the ones you sign if you're the full hosts, that isn't in the temporary contracts. And we need to know you're okay with it _before_ we give anyone the results.”

Pearl rolls her eyes. Probably has to do with being available to host at all hours in case of a special bulletin, but they expect that, went over that with the director before. They're just getting ratings.

Marie sets down her teacup and stares at Pearl, right in her eyes, so hard a shiver runs down Pearl's spine. “From the time you sign the contracts until the hosts after you take over Inkopolis News completely, you must not enter any romantic relationships.”

Holy _fuck_.

Pearl tears her eyes from Marie's and looks at her lap. She needs to do something with her hands, and she can't reach for Marina, not when she's been told terms clear as the zapfish, so she picks all the chips out of her cookie before taking other crumbs off it. Marina's voice bubbles with laughter as she asks, “Isn't the lead singer of the other group married?”

“Their contract would have that they can't get divorced or in any sort of scandal,” Callie says, sounding like her mouth's full. “Romance gets _messy_ , and they want the new hosts to seem like their relationships are perfect.”

“That won't be a problem,” Marina says, effectively dashing any hopes Pearl had without even knowing about them. “Right, Pearl?”

Pearl can't answer. What would she even _say_? 'Yeah, it would, because I really wanna kiss you, Rina'? She'd never be able to show any of them her face again.

Marina pokes her leg. "Pearl, really, you know what this job is. Doing the news live every two hours, five days a week, and recording us doing it so they can air it during off-hours and our days off. One splatfest a month; that'll take time to set up, not to mention the rehearsals for each one, and those performances. And we'll still be setting up concerts on our off-days and writing new music and all that 'branding' stuff M. Dusa's always going on about. How would we even have _time_ to romance someone?" Marina pokes her again and reaches for her tea.

“You'd have _plenty_ of time if it was each other,” says Marie, and tea sprays across the table. Pearl jumps, glancing over—Marina's scrambling for a napkin, she must've dropped her cup or something. “Oh, should I not have said that?”

Marina blushes teal and presses her napkin against her burning face.

“Mar and I are cousins,” Callie says, “or we'd've had rumors too.”

Pearl snaps her head around to glare at Callie, who has the world's _biggest_ smile. “The fuck do you mean, too?”

“Don't tell me you haven't heard,” says Marie, and Pearl growls a cuss.

She and Marina aren't in a relationship—no matter how much she'd like one. Pearl glances over at Marina, just as Marina glances at her, and Pearl matches Marina's fast and frantic scoot away. There won't _be_ a relationship, either. Not now.

Not ever. “We can agree to no romance.”


	22. Magic

**Magic**

_Everything can be explained.  
_ _The idea that something cannot,  
_ _Is a lack of education.  
_ _If I ever again hear of such frippery from you, Pearlie,  
_ _You'll get an extra hour of tutoring_  
 _Every day  
_ _Until you understand._

“Team cake,” Pearl mutters. She checks herself in the mirror again. “Team cake, team cake, team cake.”

“We can do this,” Marina says next to her. “We can—wait, Pearl, your dress is all twisted.”

Pearl twirls once, twice, as Marina stifles laughter beside her. It doesn't help, so she holds out her arms and lets Marina straighten her dress. They've worn these outfits on the news every day since they were chosen as the winners, but this is... different. This is their first splatfest.

Sundown Friday until sunup on Sunday, they're going to be _on_. On stage, performing live.

“Energy drinks?”

“Check.” They've gone over this a dozen times, but Pearl knows Marina's nervous. “We've got enough for one every break, that's every four hours. And an entire case of drinks for on stage, enough for each of us to drink a full bottle every hour.”

“Snacks?”

“Comped. Every four hours we'll come back here, give them our orders, chug an energy drink, use the bathrooms, and take our food out to eat with our side.”

“Our fans...” Marina tugs at Pearl's dress again, then steps back. “Throat drops?”

“Hundreds.” Pearl gives Marina a quick hug. “Chill, Rina. We've got this.”

Marina rests her hands on Pearl's shoulders and squeezes them. “You're wrinkling your dress.”

“With the amount of junk that's on this, I doubt an ink mine could wrinkle it,” says Pearl, but she steps back all the same.

“Girls, five minutes,” calls their manager through the door.

Marina fiddles with her short tentacle. “There's no way this is really happening.”

Pearl rolls her eyes. “Whatever helps you cope with stage fright."

“It is _not_ stage fright.”

“Uh-huh. Come on.”

They walk to their spot beneath the stage together, then separate. Pearl glances at the little squares supposed to lift them, but Marina's got absolute confidence they'll work, so she steps onto hers and waits.

“Showtime,” says someone.

The platforms move, lifting them up to the lights behind them and in front of them and a massive crowd lets up a CHEER at the sight of them, and Pearl throws up her arms and shouts, “YA'ALL READY FOR THIS?”

The answering cheer nearly knocks her over. She can barely hear Marina shouting that they're Off The Hook, even with all the microphones. And then they do their opening number, which they've rehearsed so many times it blurs in their head, and then comes the fun part.

“Now, you all know we did lotteries for the first two teams to play Turf,” Pearl says. “That's cause we've got a surprise. This splatfest—all the splatfests after—are gonna be _different._ ”

The crowd hushes and murmurs all at once, a wave of sound beneath her feet. It isn't interrupted by Marina, so Pearl looks back. Marina's frozen, her face ashen... oh. “Would the four members of Team Cake and the four members of Team Ice Cream please report to the launchpads for the first, televised round? We wanna ALL cheer you on! Because there's a new stage, JUST for this splatfest, and Rina helped make it.”

Even over the excited cheering of the crowd, she can still hear Marina cry, “ _Pearl!”_

That snapped her out of it.

“Oh come on, Rina, you wanna see this as much as I do,” says Pearl over the cheers.

Marina tugs at her shortest tentacle. “Well...”

That's all they need, as the big screens overhead stop showcasing them and show the new battlefield. At first glance, Pearl isn't impressed. _This_ was what Marina'd been going to the basement and sweating over?

Then the floor moves. Pearl's jaw drops, and the entire audience _Oooooooo_ 's as one as two sections, on the left and right, slide to one side. Creating new gaps to drop in, and new ways to get around the walls. Several long seconds later, as Judd confirms both teams are ready to go, they slide back.

No propellers, no engines, nothing Pearl can see making them move. _Holy shit_.

When the timer starts, it takes both teams a few seconds to leave spawn, as they just stare. That doesn't last long. By the minute mark, ink covers both sides, and the crowd is cheering like mad.

Pearl turns to Marina, who's twisting her hands together, and taps the button to turn off their mics. “I'd call this a better success than our first splatfest.”

Marina turns to her, nerves and delight warring on her face, looking so beautiful that Pearl's mouth dries and she can only stare at Marina's face without listening to a word she says. But then Marina turns their mics back on and looks back at the screen, and Pearl blinks.

Oh cod, that had better not have been important, because Pearl didn't understand a _word_ . She _has_ to get rid of this crush.

Later. Right now, they've got a concert to pull off.


	23. Love

**Love**

_Attraction is simple.  
_ _Surface appearance, basic mannerisms, aesthetic at best.  
_ _Lust is mindless.  
_ _You can use both to manipulate others.  
_ _Love is difficult.  
_ _Worse, it can't be controlled._  
 _And it can be used to manipulate you.  
_ _Fear it._

Soon as the broadcast's over, Pearl excuses herself, grabs her phone, and locks herself in the dressing room. One number later, she's through. “Inkopolis Power--”

“Start hiring guards again,” Pearl says.

Ray breathes a sigh of relief. "Already in the interview process. I figured you'd care, even if your parents--" Ray stops there for several moments. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."

"It was accurate," Pearl says, striving to sound unattached. "If--when, _when_ this situation is resolved, I don't want you to let all the guards go this time, understand? Rina and I make enough; I'll keep your funding going." Her mother said they'd cut off her allowance after she and Rina left supper together, but her dad never got around to it. Even if they had, she's fine.

"Understood. Salmonids, what a mess."

Pearl rubs her eyes and agrees completely. "Need anything else?"

"Not now."

"I've got my phone on me. Call me for anything."

"Even if there's no evidence--"

"I don't care if you had a fucking bad dream about the zapfish, you call me." Pearl ends the call without waiting for an answer and hates herself a little, but they've got shit to do. Ray won't take it personally.

She's just in time, too: Marina knocks before coming in. "You almost ready?" she asks, tentacles twisted. "We're finished recording, and they said we could head out early. Under the--" her breath catches, and Marina looks away.

Pearl makes herself say it. "With the Great Zapfish missing again, everyone's uneasy, no matter how relaxed we played it on the news," Pearl says. Marina cringes into herself as Pearl continues, "and with Callie missing, they want _us_ out of here, all weekend for once, so they can beef up security and install new alarms."

Marina nods, but one hand creeps up to fiddle with her short tentacle. Pearl ducks behind the screen and gets changed, pulling off her dress and crown and pulling on shorts and a yellow t-shirt. Marina's still standing there when she emerges, and Pearl nudges her. “Get changed,” she says, moving to their dressing table for her kitschy straw hat and sunglasses. She hates how she looks in them, but today of all days they don't want to be mobbed by fans. “Then we can go to your place and--”

“Are you... sure, this is a good idea?”

Pearl stops cold, still reaching for her stupid hat, then spins to face Marina completely.

Marina has her hands in front of her, is, is _hugging_ herself, twisting back and forth where she stands, her eyes on the ground. “Me going to stay with you,” Marina whispers. “I mean...”

A disgusted noise escapes the back of Pearl's throat before she can help herself, and Marina flinches. Pearl takes a deep breath. Whatever's going on, this is _Rina_ , her bandmate, her best friend, her... her partner. She has to be gentle, has to be _nice_ . “Rina, any vehicle parked within a mile is fleeced the second its owner turns their backs, and I won't walk that street without weapons and a full ink tank,” she snaps. So much for being nice. “I am _not_ letting you stay anywhere like that when there may be a crazed idol-kidnapper on the loose.”

Marina still won't look at Pearl. "It's just--" she fumbles for words, "Your parents--"

"Please." Pearl waves that one off. "Did you see them the whole time you stayed with me last year?" She folds her arms, pretending she doesn't care. "They won't be back until Squidmas, and by then this'll have all blown over."

Marina twists her hands together, still refusing to look at Pearl. "The rumors..."

"No one's said anything in _my_ hearing, and you'd've told me if you'd heard any, and no one's mentioned defusing them to us in two months," Pearl says. "We can relax a little."

Marina still won't look at her. It's starting to really unnerve Pearl. She glances at the dressing room door--closed, fine--and then Pearl looks at Marina again and asks, "What's really going on?"

Marina's breath catches in a hiccup. "I'm not like you," she says, and Pearl's stomach drops to her toes. "I shouldn't--I can't--I don't _dare_ rely on anyone but myself. I,” she stops there, and mutters something in that other language.

Pearl breathes in and out. It's come back to this. _Money._ Of course Marina isn't like her—Marina slept under a _bridge_. But that's never come up before, it hasn't mattered before. And musically, they're partners, sure, but here...

Charity. Marina wants to be her equal. That's why it's so important to her, that she have her own place, that she can survive on her own, separate from Pearl. She won't accept Pearl's charity, or what she perceives as charity, even though it's nothing but Pearl wanting Marina to be _safe_. She misses last year, before Marina got her own apartment, when Pearl would wake up and peek in the other room to see Marina already awake, unsure if she was allowed to go get herself breakfast (of course) and fiddling with the guitar Pearl loaned her or, later, when no one would be in the room and Pearl would pad down the stairs to find Marina'd already made them both omelettes. She misses impromptu movie nights where they fall asleep on the couch watching documentaries about ice cream and discovering Marina put chords to the random tune Pearl was singing in the shower.

Okay, maybe it's more than that, but she _misses Marina_ . And she wants Marina to be _safe_. And she can't be safe in that cruddy little apartment.

Marina won't accept charity (it's not, it's _not)_ and it's not like Pearl hasn't faced this before, so she blinks stinging eyes until she's in control of herself and tries to think of a compromise. “We're making decent money here, plus everything from sales and concerts,” she says. “Not to mention those afternoons at Grizzco, sometimes. Why don't you move to a better building, with proper locks and--”

“No!” The force of the word stops Pearl cold, and Marina glares at her, hands still twisted together but holding stock still. “No. No, I'm not—I'm not—Pearl, any place with a _lock_ can be used to _lock you in._ ” She hugs herself now, looking at something over Pearl's head, a distant look in her eyes. “Security is just another way of—of _caging_ someone. I don't expect you to understand,” she says, her voice catching on the last word; she coughs and continues, “You _can't_ understand. You've never—you've never—you've always been _able_ to leave, to just... just...” Marina turns her back to Pearl. “And I'm still not.”

What the actual fuck.

It's not about Pearl's money, and the realization strikes her so hard a few tears really _do_ escape. She dashes them away. It's because where she come from, they—Marina was—whatever they did, whoever, Pearl is going to _splat them_.

“Rina,” Pearl says, and eases closer a step. Another, until she can rest her hand on Marina's back; Marina flinches, but neither of them pull away. “You're right. I—I don't know. But Inkopolis isn't like that. I _promise_. And...” Pearl gropes for words. “You can't stay there, Rina. It isn't safe, even less now. And... If you pay for an apartment, you get the keys. You can't be locked in. Or...” She tries to think of something, anything, because Marina hasn't moved.

“The room you were staying in is normally my Aunt Illex's room, when she visits,” Pearl hears herself say. “She's been looking for an excuse to avoid my parents. More than that, if—if even _my_ house makes you feel trapped, reminds you of whatever _shit_ you went through before, I'll let you have whatever room you want. _Where_ ever you want, in the house. I'll make renovations; my parents won't notice. Build in some ladders. Whatever room you take, I'll make it so you can climb out the windows to the ground.”

Marina half-turns to look at her. “You're joking.” Her eyes are wide.

“Hell, maybe I'll do that to the entire second and third stories,” Pearl says. “Extendable ladders under each window, the sort that extend when there's weight on them and fold up again. Or the emergency slides for squid forms they have in hospitals and fire houses.”

Marina's almost smiling now, her lips pressed in at the corners. Tears swim in her eyes. Pearl wants to kiss them away, but she can't. She's trying _so hard_ not to have a crush. “You just want an excuse for those slides.”

“Damn straight I do!” Marina laughs, and Pearl sighs in relief. “We're gonna have to test it. Gimme a week, Rina, your room'll be set up and I'll work on the rest of the house. In the meantime, would you _please_ \--”

“I'll stay with you,” Marina says; a few tears escape her eyes, and she dashes them away with one hand. “I will. Just, Pearl, promise me something?”

“Anything.” _Everything_ , Pearl wants to say, but holds back from it.

“If—if I ever want, if I ever try, to leave, don't stop me.”

“Never,” Pearl says. “Never. You're your own person, Rina. I love you too much to try to cage you.”

Oh cod, did she really just say that?

“Thank you.” Marina bends over and wraps Pearl in a hug, holding just a little tighter than normal.

Pearl returns it. “And Rina... if you ever want to talk about your past, about what happened, I'm here to listen.” She didn't notice Pearl said the L word. Thank cod.

Marina's grip tightens. “Maybe I will,” she says at last. “Someday. Just... try not to hate me too much.”

What in the world?

“I guess I'd better get changed, huh,” Marina says, releasing Pearl at last, and she ducks behind her dressing screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may be a brief break in the updates... not long, just brief. I finished, went through, was uploading the chapters for later posting, and discovered I had 35, not 36. I've got an idea for what else I should do, but I'm *pretty* sure it'd be chapter... what is this, 23? 24 is... and... yeah, it should probably be 25. We'll see how fast I can get it out. (note: I don't write that fast! There's a reason I tend to have a buffer...)


	24. Octivus

**Octivus**

_Seeing the world from other perspectives  
_ _Is one of the most useful skills you can have.  
_ _The better you know them,_  
 _The better you can control them  
_ _And get the outcome you prefer._

Pearl sits in the back of the car, surrounded by decorations and empty take-out bags, tapping on her phone. “So that's six of the eight days of Octivus,” she calls ahead. “That leaves food... what's Marina's favorite food?”

“I heard she's rather partial to ice cream,” her driver calls back. “Do we need to stop by her apartment?”

Pearl grins. “I knew the ice cream bit myself, thanks. And I don't think I'll need the key today; I know what she's got in there.” And they drove past once already, so Pearl could peek up at the window and make sure no one'd broken it. Even on the eighth floor, a broken window's a good sign a place has been burgled.

“There's a squid sister's themed restaurant on the outskirts,” he says then, turning in his seat to look at Pearl. “My daughters have been talking about it for weeks. Thank you, by the way.”

Pearl waves it off. “You're doing me a huge favor, I'm not allowed to know your name or you'll get fired, of course I'm gonna buy your whole family's squidmas gifts. Do your daughters need anything else?”

“They're already being spoiled by all this,” he says. “I'm not sure _how_ I'll get it all home without them noticing--”

“Marina and I have a day off soon; I'll give you school hours off. We won't put anything in the trunk until then. How about your husband? He got enough? I'm _really sorry_ for keeping you out so late so close to Squidmas.”

“Plenty,” says the driver. "And I told you before: this is what I was hired for, so it's no trouble."

Pearl grumbles and leans back. "Right. Get me the number for that restaurant? I'll make arrangements once I figure out what day of Octivus it is. Did my parents give you an annual bonus yet?"

"I receive no such bonus," says their Driver.

Pearl makes a note in her phone to make TWO arrangements at the Squid Sister's restaurant, one for her and Rina, the other all-expenses-paid for driver's family. And a few hundred on top of it. "Okay, last of all, travel... suitcases, maybe some better hiking boots--oh!" This _was_ brought on by the Socks VS Sweaters splatfest. "Do you know of a store that sells ridiculous socks?"

The driver laughs. "On our way, Miss Hou--Pearl."

"Think they'll be open?" They've been at this a while; it's nearly ten at night.

"It's inkling run, not jelly or crustacean. They're open until midnight."

Perfect.

The car slows a moment later, and Pearl jumps out. Her driver doesn't accompany her, so he has no interest here. Silly Sliders, the place is called, a little hole in the wall on the outskirts of Arowana that's floor to ceiling in footwear. All sorts of it: boots with metal toes and boots woven from flowers, sandals made of--is that _chainmail?_ Pearl tries those on, but they're dreadfully uncomfortable. And socks, all the socks in the world, made from every possible material and with designs on them.

The ones Pearl gets Marina at last have bells sewn into the toes, so Marina can make music as she walks, or dance and sing and be her own accompaniment. She thinks Marina'll like that.

By the time they get back to her house, it's nearly midnight. Pearl bids her driver (she CAN'T know his name, and it irks her) goodnight, grabs as many decorations as she can carry and those socks--the first day of Octivus is tomorrow, but she can't _wait_ to give Marina these socks. And she can faintly hear piano music, scales, the way Marina plays them: once normal, then skipping notes and doubling back, do mi re fa, then even larger intervals she uses to keep her fingers limber and when she's trying to think up new pieces,

The piano's stopped by the time Pearl's reached Marina's door, but she doesn't let that stop her. She shoves the door open with her shoulder, since her arms are too full, and stumbles in, dropping things. "Squidnet says Octivus was an Octarian holiday that's still celebrated by salmonids and about an eighth of the jellies and maybe one or two percent of inklings," she says, and sneezes; glitter flies everywhere. "And it goes for eight days, and the first day is _tomorrow_ , why didn't you tell me?"

Marina's standing in front of the piano, her mouth open. She closes and opens it again, but no words come out. Pearl grins; no way was Rina expecting this!

Pearl misplaced the socks at some point, so she drops everything on the floor and starts sorting through it; they can decorate Rina's room, and maybe the whole hall, tomorrow. "It said every day had a theme, but I couldn't tell which was _what_ , but one was for traveling to be with family, so that's gotta be day one. And there's a gift for every day. So, it's a bit early, and I didn't wrap it, but, surprise!" Pearl holds up the socks. "Happy Octivus!... wait, why are you crying?" Because Marina _is_ crying, tears streaming from her eyes as she stands there, not making a sound.

Marina shakes her head once, twice, opening and closing her mouth in silence. "But... you celebrate Squidmas" Marina says at last. "And I thought..."

Marina can't finish the sentence, but Pearl can fill in the blanks. She left _everything_ behind when she ran away to Inkopolis: her family, her home, even her clothes. She must've thought this was just one more thing only her home did, one more thing she needed to leave behind forever. "But _you_ celebrate Octivus. Or celebrated. So let's do both!"

Marina bends over and grabs Pearl, pulling her into a hug and sobbing into Pearl's shoulder. Pearl drops the socks. Marina says something, muffled by tears and choked by hiccups, but Pearl can't make heads or tentacles out of it; Marina's speaking her old language, the one she sings, the one Pearl still doesn't know.

Pearl puts her arms around Marina, hugging back as well as she can in the awkward position. "It's... uh..." Pearl struggles for what to say. "Are these happy tears?" she asks, even though she's sure they're not. "It's okay, Rina. You're fine. You're fresh, even.” A nervous laugh tears from Pearl's throat as she struggles to think of something else to say.

She can't. All she can do is rub Marina's back and listen to Marina's stream of nonsense babble that really _means_ something--but not to her. She messed up, somehow—maybe Marina only wanted to forget Octivus, or try to. She worries so much about fitting in.

At last, Marina lets Pearl go, sniffling and wiping her eyes. Pearl looks at her hands. “I'm sorry,” Pearl says. “I didn't mean to upset you. To bring up bad memories, or--”

“No,” Marina interrupts, and Pearl looks up as Marina grabs her again, picking her up and hugging her so tight the breath wooshes from Pearl's lungs in one squeak before it becomes comfort. Pearl hugs back, legs dangling, as Marina continues, “This is—this was—I didn't expect.” Marina shakes her head, one of her long tentacles tangling with Pearl's short ones, Marina's short tentacle brushing against her forehead, and the contact feels so _intimate_ all the ink rushes to Pearl's cheeks. “Thank you _so much._ ”

Pearl... did something right. She squeezes Marina harder, trying to match the comforting pressure holding her up. She almost wants to cry, too, and she's not sure why. “Anytime, and don't you forget it.”

Pearl doesn't know how long they stay like that, clutching each other, before Marina gasps and sets her down, taking one fast step back. “Sorry,” Marina says, her voice squeaking, cheeks teal.

Pearl waves a hand. She feels wobbly, without Marina's presence. She wants to hug Marina again. She wants—but this isn't about her. Behind Marina, she spots the clock: five after midnight. “Rina, you can hug me anytime you want. And,” she continues, retrieving the socks, “it's not too early for your gift anymore.”

Marina reaches for them and stops, her hand hovering in the air. “But I don't have any for you.”

"You can give the things on Squidmas," says Pearl. "Octivus is _your_ holiday, so that's when I'll give you stuff. Now come on! Tell me all about it."

Marina smiles. Pearl wants to kiss it—no, she's not allowed to think those things. “Okay,” Marina says, sitting on the bed, patting the spot beside her for Pearl. She pulls on the socks and admires her feet. “My parents got me socks every year for the first of Octivus,” she said. “Me and my brother. Harbor always called me 'tentacrop'. I _hate_ that name.”

Pearl holds her breath. Marina _never_ talks about her past.

“Since I lived... away, with others like me, it was the only time I _really_ saw them. I missed them. Still do. Sometimes.”

Lived away. With others like her. Cod, with family like that...

Pearl reaches over and takes Marina's longest tentacle in her hands, traces the edges of the suckers, making her giggle. Then, deliberately, Pearl reaches up and traces all along Marina's short tentacle, from base to tip and back again, stopping each time to circle the suckers there. “Well,” Pearl says, “I'm glad you're here now.”

Marina puts her hand on Pearl's leg. “Me too. Even if... I know this can't... it's just too perfect.”

Pearl can't breathe for a few moments. “Well... what else did you do on Octivus? What's the order of the days?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took three false starts and a fair amount of cussing, but the missing chapter has been (mostly) written. I need to figure out a title for it and an opening conversation/quote/whatever still, but that shouldn't take *too* long. I've been posting slightly more than once every 7 days, I should be able to hold to that.


	25. Acceptance

**Acceptance**

_People in books have parents for more than holidays.  
_ _They don't get a revolving door of nannies,  
_ _They attend school instead of having tutors.  
_ _It's another case of things being fine for other families,  
_ _Not for me.  
_ _I need to be better._  
_Then my life can be even better than the stories.  
Right, Mommy?_

"Five concerts, five days," Marina mutters. She pushes open the door to the hallway with Pearl's room and Marina's temporary room and yawns so wide her jaw cracks. "Why did we decide to do this?"

"Because Chirpy Chips, and Jelly Jam, and three other groups wanted opening bands, and we don't have enough content for a show all our own yet." Pearl drops her keys on the little table and watches them slide off and to the floor. "We still have the news tomorrow."

"Bed now?"

"Bed now." Pearl stretches and rolls her shoulders. "Good night, Rina. Sweet dreams."

"May--um, sweet dreams, Pearlie."

Marina goes into her room first, as Pearl strolls past her and pushes open her door. She doesn't want to turn on the light, wants to just flop into bed, but with the state of her room--

The light shows Pearl's room is pristine. There are no clothes scattered across the floor, no empty mugs on the nightstand. The lines in the carpet show it was freshly vacuumed, and someone made her bed with an extra blanket and a brand new pure white comforter edged in lace. On top of the comforter, with a heavily embroidered pillow on either side, sits Pearl's mother, reading a book by the light of her tentacles.

Pearl freezes.

Her mother holds up a single finger and continues reading. Pearl opens her mouth and closes it, her eyes flicking around the room. All her posters are still up. Her instruments are in the corner; her eyes narrow, but no, it looks like someone only dusted the drum set. Her closet doors are partially open, and it doesn't _look_ like anything's missing. And her mother is _still reading._

Pearl's feet hurt, and her eyes feel like sand, and her tentacles are more squish than bounce, and she just wants to gargle something for her throat and sleep for a week (or until the alarm). But instead she closes the door and waits for her mother to reach a stopping point.

When her mother finally puts in the bookmark and looks up, Pearl's stomach has folded itself so tightly it could pass for origami. “Your concert ended three hours ago,” her mother locks eyes with Pearl, “and your role in it ended almost five hours ago. Care to explain what took you?”

She didn't do anything _wrong_ , but Pearl's mouth is dry and she struggles to swallow anyway. “It's bad etiquette to leave before the end of a concert, even if you're not performing the whole time,” she says; that should convince her mother, the etiquette queen, of at least that much. “And performers must always wait until the crowds have disbursed, at least somewhat. We stayed until then, then learned Wet Floor had ordered food and wanted us to eat with them.”

“We?” her mother asks.

“Marina and I,” Pearl says, forcing a smile. “Kagi, the synth player, hates public performances; listening to his complaints, and talking with his band, was loads of fun. Add in a long drive home, and, well... here we are.”

Pearl doesn't ask why her mother's in her room, or why it's so clean. The servants stay out of here unless her mother tells them otherwise, because her mother can overrule Pearl; her mother will get to it when she feels like it. If Pearl tries to push, it'll go worse, and take longer.

Her mother sits upright and swings her legs over the side of the bed. She pats the spot beside her. “How is Marina, anyway? I know she's living here _until_ ,” Pearl can't miss the slight pause and emphasis there, “she finds a more suitable apartment, in a better neighborhood. But I haven't seen her once, and we've been here... six weeks now? Since December twelfth.” Her mother's voice takes on the slightest edge and she narrows her eyes just the tiniest bit at Pearl, unmoving by the door. “Is she aware it's rude to avoid your hosts?”

Pearl moves without thinking, walking forward and sitting next to her mother, letting her mother put an arm around her, every motion on auto-pilot as she wonders where _this_ is going. “Between the news, Squidmas preparations, concerts, and everything else, I've barely seen you myself,” she says; she doesn't mention the Octivus stuff. Pearl doesn't think her mother ever came down the hall when it was up, and now all the dangly 8's and sparkly octopi and candles shaped like tentacles are packed away in the dustiest corner of the attic. “When we have been home early enough for dinner, Marina's allowed me to go alone so as not to intrude on our rare family time.” It's not the reason at all, but it could pass.

Her mother squeezes her shoulder. “She should join us next time. Sadly, your father and I will be leaving again next week; the voyage shouldn't be difficult, the salmonids have been much less of a problem lately.”

Pearl lets out a breath and relaxes before she can stop herself.

“In the meantime, I need you to tell me all about your... _friend.”_

Pearl's whole body tenses like she's targeted by four sets of tenta missiles at once. “Marina and I are musical partners,” she says, the standard answer. “We—”

“You spend all your time together, on the news and off it.”

Pearl swallows. “Because it's a business relationship as well as a friendship. We need to—”

“You place _her_ above your family,” her mother continues, squeezing Pearl's shoulders.

Pearl struggles to breathe. “Marina—she doesn't really _have_ any family she can go to, and this time of year, it's—”

“Pearl,” says her mother, “I know what people say about you two.”

Pearl freezes.

“And I've seen how you look at her, when you think she isn't looking.” Her mother leans over and kisses her forehead. “This has to stop, Pearl.”

Pearl struggles to breathe. “Wh-what has to?”

“When you were younger, it was amusing. A source of childish rebellion. We all have those.” Her mother laughs. “Why, I remember the time I gave money to beggars on the street! The follies of youth. But now? You're twenty-one, Pearl. Nearly twenty-two, in a few months. It's time to set aside childish fancies.”

Now Pearl pulls away, scoots sideways on the bed, lace scratching her legs, and stares her mother in the face. “What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about Coral,” her mother says, naming the servant Pearl kissed twice, who she laughed with and spent time whispering with before deciding all they had was physical attraction. “I'm talking about Nautalisia,” who Pearl took to senior prom and played Pearl like the piano. “I'm talking about Betta,” who liked to try to tickle Pearl just because Pearl would insist she wasn't ticklish, going at it until they were both laughing. “I'm _talking_ about _Marina.”_

Pearl's mouth is dry; she coughs.

“We wouldn't be having this conversation if it were Tenuis, or his brother Aculeus.” She names the sons of two of her friends, people as rich as they are. “Or Jastog, or Skampi, or Fiskur.” Pearl knows the names, the children of the people her parents entertain when they're actually around. _“Those_ are appropriate 'friends' for you.” Her mother reaches out and brushes a tentacle from Pearl's face. “You're growing up. It's time for you to have some appropriate relationships. _Proper_ ones.”

“Marina and I aren't like that,” Pearl says. “And... and I can't have that sort of... relationship.”

“And why not?”

“Inkopolis News contracts. We cannot enter any relationships until the next hosts take over the show.” Cod, Pearl has never been thankful for that damn clause before, because she sure as shell can't tell her mother the real reasons. “Probably another two years. And I'm not giving up this job, Mom. I _won't_.”

Pearl's mother smiles. “I'll mark it on the calendar. I'm glad we've had this chat.” Her mother gets to her feet, turns back, and kisses Pearl's forehead once more. “Sweet dreams, Pearlie.”

Pearl's still awake, staring at the ceiling, when her alarm goes off.


	26. Security

** Security **

_Lesser people will say,  
__If you are not willing to lose what you have,  
__You must be able to defend it.  
__Preposterous.  
__If one has money enough, has power enough,_  
_is_ feared _enough,  
__No one will ever dare challenge them._

Pearl bounces into the car and pulls off her hat. “Makomart, okay?” she tells her driver. “Marina wants to teach me how to make scalloped potatoes this week. And then we'll meet at the construction shop, because she  _has_ to customize her stupid weapon wall for the brella.”

Driver laughs and starts the car. “Did you try to convince her to just live with you again?”

Pearl blows a raspberry.

Driver laughs more.

Pearl sighs and slumps in her seat. “She's gonna get robbed someday,” Pearl says. “I mean, you  _know_ what that neighborhood's like. And then I'll have to make you put up the soundproofing, because if Rina goes full freak-out I'm not even letting  _you_ listen in.”

“No, but I'll still be able to watch,” driver says. He parks the car. “Just in case you two kiss, and I've got something for the tabloids.”

All the ink rushes to Pearl's cheeks. “H-hey!” She gets up to lean over the seats. “You  _know_ we're not like that!”

“It'd also violate the privacy clause in my contract,” says driver. “Don't worry, I'll keep chasing away the paparazzi. But don't you wish your relationship _was_ like that?”

“N-no,” she says, but even to her own ears she sounds like she's lying. She scowls and leaves the car, slamming the door behind her.

Makomart is a fucking zoo, because it's always a fucking zoo. Part of the store is closed for turf matches, though not a part she tends to frequent, so there are people in the aisles with good views cheering squids on. It must be one kid's first turf war, if the way her father is carrying on about it, and Pearl winces for that squid's sake: she can hear the man even five aisles over, getting the potatoes and onions. A quick stop for some butter and scallops, milk and creamer, and she can get in the express lane which—she peeks and groans—has an elderly crustacean arguing about expired coupons and paying entirely in single-digit coins for a triple-digit order.

Pearl switches lines to get behind someone with two shopping carts full of stuff and still gets out of there before the so-called express lane has moved.

“Welcome back,” says driver when Pearl flounces in.

Pearl scowls at him. “Just go,” she grumbles, getting on her knees before the mini-fridge. “We're meeting her at the hardware store.” The milk and creamers inside are probably out of date, so she shoves in the new ones, and the butter to keep cold, then almost hits her head on the coffee maker when she stands back up and goes to a seat by the window. She hates that thing, but it's saved them after more than one too-late night writing songs when they've gotta be at the studio in the morning.

Out of habit, as they go past Marina's building, Pearl glances to the eighth floor, five windows over. If the lights are on, they'll beat Marina there, and--

The window is broken.

“Park the car,” Pearl says.

Driver doesn't hesitate: he swings into a spot so fast Pearl falls over. No time for that. She gropes behind the fridge for the key Marina gave her ages back, shoves it in her pocket by her phone. “Pop the trunk,” she orders, already half out the door, and reaches inside for her dualies and ink tank, because she  _never_ travels here unarmed even so far as from the bottom of Rina's building to the top and—and her window is broken and the light's on, so Marina's  _in there_ . Probably. Or she turned on the light, took one look, and hightailed it out.

Pearl's still got on her holsters from turf earlier, so she shoves one dualie in there and keeps the other in hand while she dials the police. “What's your emergen--”

Pearl rattles off the address, apartment, and adds, “Robbery in progress, I'm going in to help my friend,” then scarce waits for confirmation as she shoulders open the door to the building and starts up the first flight of stairs. She hangs up on the second flight, shoving her phone in her pocket again, and is panting by the sixth, but  _Rina could be in trouble._

She forces herself to keep climbing, though, up the stairs, though she can't keep running. She stops just long enough at the eighth floor landing to be able to breathe without gasping, because if Rina needs help—oh, Rina is going to laugh at her, but Pearl will take it. Because it means Rina won't end up missing like Callie, and Pearl  _cannot lose Marina_ .

She just can't.

And then she's off again, down the hall, past two, three doors, and almost falls into it. It's locked, of course it is, Rina always locks it behind her, but Pearl pounds on it."Rina! Your window was broken. Did someone steal your stuff? Is everything okay?"

Marina'll laugh, she'll hear it through the door, and she'll open it to tell Pearl that she's imagining things. Or she'll say 'no' and let Pearl in. Or

“Everything's fine, Pearlie,” Marina says, her voice tight and high and catching. “I'll-I'll meet you downstairs,” she adds, and it wobbles.

Pearl's eyes widen and she backs up a step, because she doesn't think Marina's ever outright _lied_ to her before, and—“Is that _blaster fire?_ ” she demands at the noise, a familiar thwip-whap echoing through the door, and other, softer voices. And oh cod, there's ink seeping into the hall carpet.

“Pearl--”

“There's ink coming from under the door!” Shit shit shit _shit shit._ Pearl fumbles in her pocket for the key, focuses on her tentacles, on her ink, twists them to match Marina's teal.

“Pearl, _just go!”_ Marina shouts, and there's terror in her voice clear as the first time they turfed together, but Pearl's found the key and not even the sound of a shooter is going to stop her. She shoves the key in the lock, twists it, and kicks open the door.

In the second she has, Pearl sees a brush guarding the window, a blaster and shooter aiming at the tiny opening to the kitchen, blocked by an ink-soaked table. “ _What the fuck are you fucking fuckers doing?!_ ” she shouts, shooting all the while, splatting the shooter in one move, dodge-rolling around the brush's attack and keeping her at a distance.

The sound of a brella releasing, the squish of a hit but no kersplooshey splat. “Pearl!”

Pearl dodge-rolls around the brush, getting two shots from behind and sending it jumping behind the door. She turns to Marina. “Rina! Are you--”

“I'm fine.” She shoots at the brush behind Pearl, and Pearl spots the blaster coming for another attack, dodge-rolls forward and snaps off a couple shots, keeping her at bay as Rina swims towards her.

Pearl's low on ink; she swears and turns squid, submerging for the merest second while glancing at Rina—couple ink splatters but nothing worse than a turf war. "I called the police when I saw your window; they should be here--"

" _No."_ Rina holds her brella open to shield them. "In this part of town? It's splat or be splatted."

Marina freezes for a second as she says that, and Pearl knows why. Rina's never splatted anyone in her life, not even in turf war. But the blaster's getting closer. “Then that's what we'll do. _Down.”_

Marina turns squid as Pearl dodge-rolls straight at the blaster. Rina can hold the brush off with her brella, and Pearl can splat the girl for her, but right now she's gotta focus. Dodge this way, dodge that, keep shooting—the blaster splats and Pearl swivels on her knees, panting, to see Marina splat the brush. A glance at the kitchen—empty, that's where Rina was hiding—and Pearl stalks towards the bedroom, dualies at the ready, because the trail of ink indicates the fight started here. The room seems empty, though there's a dark pink splat spot on the ground; Rina must've taken one out before Pearl got there.

She still checks inside the closet and under the bed before leaving. Marina stands facing the door, her splat brella still at the ready. “They're gone,” Pearl says, and Marina jumps. She spins to face Pearl, her tentacles twisted, face ash. "We need to go to the police."

"No," Marina whispers. "We can't tell the police."

"Rina, they were _thieves_ ," Pearl says. She reaches for Marina and puts one arm around her waist, as much as a hug as she can manage with her dualies in hand; Marina releases the brella with one hand to put her arm around Pearl's shoulder. "Or worse, they were going to do to you whatever--whatever happened to Callie." She lets out a long breath. "They were--"

"It wasn't either of those." Marina's hoarse; she goes back to whispering. "They were here because I ran away. Pearl--" She stops talking for a moment, and her brella wobbles in her grip. "I--I splatted--"

"Shhhhh." Pearl squeezes Marina. She's shaking; she shouldn't be shaking. "We'll talk in the car. Come on."

Pearl has to take Marina's hand and pull her along like a child, stopping to check on her after every flight of stairs. They're both ink splattered, but no worse for the wear; with every landing, Pearl looks at Marina again, and she looks—well, not better. Less injured, maybe, certainly less inked, but she's shaking all over, now, and there's a far-off look in her eyes that makes Pearl wonder what she's thinking of.

_No police_ , Rina said, so when they get to the car she pushes Rina inside first. “Soundproofing,” she says, and starts making coffee. She drops her dualies on the floor, in case they're needed, and makes Rina sit on the long bench seat rather than the floor. When the coffee's ready, she glances over—yes, the soundproof window is up—and makes a cup the way Marina likes it, heavy on cream and sugar.

She still hasn't moved.

Pearl swallows the lump in her throat and presses the cup in Marina's hands, and Marina blinks, her eyes seeming to focus for the first time since they left her apartment. “Drink slow,” Pearl says, not letting go of the handle until she's  _sure_ Rina won't drop the mug.

Once Rina's drinking, Pearl releases a breath and looks around. Her hearts are still pounding, but she can't be  _half_ as freaked as Rina is. She glances forward, catches driver's eye, and nods; he starts the car.

As they drive away, Rina murmurs, “My bike.”

“I'll send someone to pick it up.” Thank cod, she said something. Pearl turns back towards her and puts one hand on her leg. “Keep drinking. We'll talk about it when we get home. No police until after. But Rina I--” Pearl has to stop and take a deep breath in, let it out slowly, because she can't go to pieces, not now. “I was _so scared_ \--”

“You should have stayed out of it.” Pearl's never heard Rina sound so harsh.

But Pearl's hands are shaking, too, and she clenches them behind her back so Marina can't see. She shakes her head. “I was scared something  _happened_ to you, Rina. I—I  _couldn't._ ”

Rina looks down at the coffee cup. She's got it held between both hands, tight as tight can be, but she doesn't take another sip until Pearl prods her. And then she says, her voice shaking, “I splatted two people, Pearl.”

The brush, and that person in the bedroom. “Rina, it's okay,” she says, putting one hand on Marina's leg. “You were being attacked. You--”

“The first one was my brother.”

Pearl stills. She gives herself one hard, fast shake all over. “What?”

“They—they sent him to bring me back. To help convince me to come—to go home. And I splatted...” If Marina hadn't drunk so much coffee already, it'd be sloshing over the sides from the force of her shakes. Pearl grabs it from her, sets it on the floor. “And I _know him,_ Pearl. He—they—respawn pads are more of a suggestion. They wouldn't have expected...” Marina forces a smile and what must mean to be a laugh, but her voice wobbles and catches and it's as much a sob as Pearl's ever heard from her. “Not from _me_. I was the good girl, I did what I was told, I never made a fuss or-or-or _anything_ , I was their perfect little _slave_ until that concert.” She covers her eyes with her hands. “And that was my _brother_. He-he didn't _care_ about, he didn't—he couldn't—he just needed to take me back. Nothing else mattered.”

Pearl leans forward and wraps Marina in a hug; Marina holds stock still. “Rina,” she says, “it is  _not your fault._ And... adults say, all the time, that someone isn't their family any more. Because of religion, or crimes, or,” and Pearl laughs, “or  _orientation_ . Or  _career choice_ . Shell, my parents would've sworn off my Aunt Illexia forever if they didn't know my Gran would destroy them for it.”

Marina pulls her hands from her eyes.

“Family's not just the people related by ink, Rina. And you don't even have to count those. Family is—family are the people you want to have in your life, in your corner, no matter _what_. Related or not. And anyone who'd drag you back there, well, they're not your family.”

Marina hugs Pearl back, but Pearl barely notices. Because what she said... she doesn't know where it came from.

All she knows is, by that logic, she has a huge family. Gran, her aunts and uncles, her cousins. But her parents sure aren't part of it.

Marina is.


	27. Family

** Family **

_Look, kid, your parents--  
_ _Well, they're okay.  
_ _I guess.  
_ _But never think they know everything.  
_ _Get some people who support you_  
_No matter what  
_ _And you're golden._

“I don't know about this, Pearl,” Marina says. She smooths down the front of her dress—it's not new, something Pearl bought her back when they were becoming a regular intro band for the first time, but it looks good. “I've already met your parents.”

“But you haven't met the rest of my relatives.” Pearl grabs Marina's hand and squeezes, pulling it away from her dress before she can untie and retie the lacing an eighth time. “We were doing concerts during the annual squidmas party, but my Aunt Illexia holds a gathering at the end of every spring. My parents always have something else going on.”

“At the beach?”

“At the beach,” Pearl confirms.

“Too far away to walk home if I need to?”

Pearl rolls her eyes. She'd make a point about how Marina's apartment-hunting again, that she refuses to say she lives at Pearl's place, but she knows that's not what Marina's after. “If it gets overwhelming, you can hide in the car at any time and I'll cover for you. It's already got snacks and drinks and a bunch of movies, more than enough for the drive there and back. And some books.”

Marina pulls away from Pearl and fiddles with her headphones.

Pearl sighs. “If you  _really_ need to get away, say the phrase 'pink inkbrush' and I'll have an Immediate and Terrible Emergency and we need to leave  _right now_ . No matter what happens.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” Pearl's stomach twists, but not with nerves like when Rina met her parents; with hope and anticipation. “Now get in the car! Come on, let's go!”

It still takes Pearl another ten minutes to get Marina in the car, and once the first movie's on and Marina's engrossed and not paying attention, she lets out a breath of relief. She got them both the time off for this, no concerts or news, right after the incident with Marina's ex-brother.

Pearl's prepared: in addition to the seats around the edges of the vehicle, there's an open space in the center to move around, set up the movie projector, get coffee... or, like now, to lay out some pillows, turn squid, and take a nap snuggled up in them. It's hard to get a full night's sleep in squid form, but it's perfect for napping.

Pearl wakes up sometime later, the corners of her eyes gummed up, to realize the car's stopped. She rubs at her face with her tentacles and turns back to kid form. “That didn't take long,” she says, then realizes she's alone in the car.

What.

Pearl rubs her eyes again and looks around. The car is parked by the edge of the beach; she can see the sand. When she opens the door, the sound of the waves and a cool breeze—it's still too early to really swim or wear beach clothes, even for jellies who never seem to care—whips through her clothes, making her shiver. A bunch of lawnchairs are set up just in view, there's a volleyball game in the distance, and from the little beach shack a fair walk away comes the sound of talk and laughter.

How long have they been parked? Why didn't anyone wake her up? Because Pearl recognizes Aunt Illipta's high-pitched laugh, and gran's cackle, and the murmur of Marina's voice even from here. She would've thought Rina would wake her when they got there, and she'd have to introduce Marina to all her relatives. And Marina might be shy and fidgety all day.

As Pearl gets closer she hears more laughter, and another voice, one of her uncles, says something, and Marina--Pearl stops mid-step, because she's never heard Marina laugh like this where others could hear her before. Sure enough, when Pearl's close enough to make out words, Marina's babbling: "I'm sorry. Sorry! I didn't mean to shriek like that, to--"

"Shriek? Child, you don't know _half_ about shrieking." Illipta's honey voice rolls down the beach towards Pearl, out the beach house's open windows. "Did Punch ever tell you about the time she saved up and bribed contractors into designing a practice room in the basement without telling her parents?"

Oh _no_.

Pearl sprints through the door, but it's already too late. All four of them turn to look as she throws open the door; it bangs against the wall and hits her, so Pearl stumbles back a step. " _WHICH OF YOU TOLD HER ABOUT 'PUNCH'?!"_

She doesn't actually need to ask, of course; Illipta leaps to her feet. "There she is!" She comes at Pearl, arms outstretched. "You're _never_ gonna get rid of that nickname, Punch."

Pearl tackles her. Illipta catches Pearl and swings her around, even though Pearl is a grown-ass woman, and in seconds the two of them are wrestling on the floor. Pearl is pinned, of course, Pearl is _always_ the one pinned. "You've got to do better than that," she tells Pearl.

Pearl turns squid, and Illipta grabs Pearls tentacles in each hand. "Have a nice nap?" she asks Pearl, smiling. "Marina and your uncle Gull teamed up to win the annual volleyball tournament--we insisted she play in your place, since you hate it anyway--and she signed autographs for half the squiddos, and we were _just_ making sure she had enough blackmail material for if you get too ridiculous on-air."

Pearl can't wiggle free in _either_ form, no matter how fast she shifts, so she fixes her uncle with pleading eyes "Gull--"

"I had to make sure the beaches' best volleyball player knew what she was getting into!" says her uncle, grinning.

Pearl shifts her gaze. "Rina--"

"Did you _seriously_ stop an annual singing contest by causing a shockwave?" Marina asks. "I mean, I think they're lying, but--"

"I'll bring pictures next Squidmas," says Gran, and Pearl closes her eyes and groans. "I don't have that album with me today. Now, if _anyone_ gives you trouble about your tentacles or appearance, or, well, _anything_ , you call on us Houzuki's, hear me?" Gran taps Marina's leg with her cane. "You're a nice girl, you don't deserve that.

As Marina nods, Pearl can only stare. Did one of her relatives say something while she slept? Or do something?

"Now, I may not have that photo album in the car, but I have others." Gran gets to her feet. "Wanna see pictures of Pearl as a squiddo?"

"Do you have the punch photo, Gran?"

Marina was right. This was a _terrible_ idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could've put this a couple chapters ago, but I didn't want to mess with, uh, you can probably guess.
> 
> Because I can't count, I wound up writing 37 chapters for this. Which means I have three options.  
> A: remove the shortest/most inconsequential snapshot moment.  
> B: there are exactly two chapters that could potentially be combined into one snapshot, which'd only mean sacrificing the chapter title/opening bit.  
> C: Change the total number of chapters to 37.
> 
> Any opinions?


	28. Responsibility

**Responsibility**

_For every task,  
_ _There is a person to do it.  
_ _Be it driving, cleaning,  
_ _or even running a company.  
_ _Owning it is our right,_  
_But we must understand it,  
_ _If we are to continue to thrive._

Pearl hops from foot to foot, pushes at her lifesaver, wipes salmonid slime off her cheek, and turns to Marina. “That thing you did, with the tenta brella and the steelhead?” Pearl almost can't contain herself, because _seriously_. “That was super fresh!” Marina stopped an insta-wipe there, it was awesome.

Marina laughs and pulls her own lifesaver over her head. “Didn't wind up helping us any. We still had a crew wipe.”

“So? It was the third wave.” One of their coworkers leans against the side of the ship, putting his hands behind his head and crossing his legs at the ankle; he hasn't bothered taking off his lifesaver yet. “I keep doing this well, get coworkers like you two every time, I'll be profreshional in no time.”

Pearl laughs. “Yeah, you did great, too. And you...” She turns to the last member of their little crew this time, a girl with short tentacles who's looked like she wants to ask for their autographs but doesn't feel it's appropriate the _whole time_ they worked together, “you're amazing with blasters, has anyone told you that yet?”

The girls blush turns her whole head blue. She shakes her head, tentacles flapping. “You really think so? You do? You--”

“Yeah, I do. We're amazing.” Pearl steps out of her own lifesaver and kicks it to the side, then leans with her back against the boat's cabin. “Have you tried ranked yet?”

“I, uh, Mr. Grizz didn't check my age before hiring me. I'm not old enough for ranked for another two months.”

Oh, hell yes. Pearl reaches under her uniform shirt and coveralls, both covered in salmonid slime, and fishes until she finds a business card. “When you are, hit me up, and I'll buy you a couple weapons for it. I know they're expensive, and with some nice gear, I bet you'd hit A+ or S rank in a year. You can pay me back then.”

The girl's eyes nearly pop out of her head “I couldn't—I mean, thank—is that a _real—_ thank you so much—I don't know—”

Pearl bites back a smile. She hasn't done this much, but she thinks she can make it work. If that girl's half as good at any of the ranked modes with a blaster as she was in that shift, then having Pearl sponsor her'll work _really_ _well_ for Pearl in the long run. Sure, making sure she has weapons and good clothes'll be a sink until she reaches A rank, but then it should break even, and if Pearl drafts up a five-year contract (standard for ranked sponsorships, but most of those don't start until _after_ the person reaches S rank at least, so she can push for a higher payback) with the stipulation that Pearl buys her so many new weapons/pieces of gear/arranges transport every month in exchange for a percentage of the girl's earnings...

Pearl snaps out of her daydreaming to see Marina peering at a sketchbook the boy's holding. “Let me see,” she says, standing on her toes to look.

The boy bends to show Pearl the sketchbook as the ship's loudspeaker comes on. “All right, crew, we're coming in to dock. Get changed and leave your uniforms for the cleaners. Pick up your bonuses at the usual place. Worker Marina, if you'd take a moment to see if those fools at supply actually sent me the RIGHT SIZE of coveralls this time, you can come to Meeting Room C for an extra hundred shells.”

Pearl's head snaps up. That's _..._ that's not normal. She abandons the boy and his sketchbook and grabs Marina's hand. “Do _not_ go alone.”

Marina rolls her eyes. “Pearl, I won't leave the building. There's a few dozen grizzco employees on this ship alone, and probably a few dozen more about to start their shift. There are weapons in every room. I'll be fine.”

Pearl bites her lip. “But--”

“ _And_ our bodyguards were waiting in the lobby,” Marina adds. Pearl can't really argue with that. “The odds of someone coming to rough us up are almost nonexistent. You look at the superfresh art; I'll see you in the lobby.”

Pearl doesn't like it, but she can see Marina's eyes: there's no choice in this, she's going. They all walk off the boat together, but Pearl stops and plops at a breakroom table with their other two crewmates while Marina keeps going.

She admires the art, and she exchanges phone numbers with the girl, but she isn't really focused on what she's doing. When they leave, and Marina still isn't back, Pearl takes a deep breath and goes to change out of her grizzco uniform. She drops the things in the laundry shoot, puts on the super profreshional outfit she chose this morning, makes sure her hair is in order, and knocks on the door marked **Conferences**.

The door swings open on its own, and Pearl walks in. The room is small, featuring just a table and a bear statue. Pearl's seen other crew members come in here, to tell Mr. Grizz they should get better bonuses or argue against deranking after someone got injured on the job and left them with only three crew members (The only person who won that one single-handedly made it through two of the three waves after her crewmates spent the entire two-and-a-half waves jumping in the water, trying to see how far out to sea their lifesavers could get them) but she isn't here about that.

“Pearl Houzuki, correct?” asks the speaker in the statue. “What do you wish to speak with me about?”

Pearl squares her shoulders and lets out a long, shaky breath. “Power eggs,” she says. “I am here today not as your employee, a rank 60 Overachiever, but as a representative of Inkopolis Power. The Great Zapfish has been missing for several months, and providing enough power is beginning to put a strain on the young zapfish. While we can last quite some time yet, I would like to negotiate for some of your power egg supply.”

Pearl expected this conversation could go many ways: flat refusal, immediate agreement for the sake of Inkopolis, harsh negotiations. She did not expect the bear to laugh at her. She grits her teeth but tries not to show it, doesn't respond as Mr. Grizz laughed through the speaker. When he's finished, he asks, “Miss Houzuki, what makes you think I expect your parents have agreed to this?”

Pearl grinds her teeth. “I'm twenty-two years old, and a legal adult,” she says. “My name is there on the director's list as well as theirs. Inkopolis power is my responsibility.”

The bear statue makes a noise of disbelief.

Pearl, who is being _the bigger person_ , ignores it. “One power egg produces approximately one thousand watts of electricity, at a rate of ten watts per hour, before being used up. Naturally, it's far from efficient—being that it requires several to power even one lightbulb, and any in a proper battery must be removed and replaced roughly every four days—but we have the ability to set aside two rooms for approximately one hundred ten-egg batteries each. We hope to fill both rooms on a rotating schedule, replacing the eggs in each room with fresh ones on different days. If the zapfish is missing for another three months, we're prepared to create another two rooms for such tasks.” Then she swallows, and names a price per egg that basically ensures the price raise her parents insisted on, _again_ , becomes an actual necessity.

There's a long silence. Pearl doesn't break it. She waits. Most of her relatives were at a loss for what to do, now; there's increased pressure to overuse ( _abuse_ , they mean) the young zapfish to provide more electricity, and none but her thought of an alternative. Soon, to keep up with Inkopolis's power needs, they'll have no choice in the matter.

Pearl doesn't want to be in charge of this. She wants to sing and dance and tour the world. With Marina. But, well, her father was the baby of the Houzuki family. Most of her cousins are ten or fifteen years older than her, and she calls half of them 'aunt' and 'uncle' because it's simpler; none of them are involved, they've got their own lives. Her second and third cousins are young enough that half of them don't even have legs.

“And what, Miss Houzuki, makes you believe I am prepared to part with the eggs?”

Pearl swallows. “Everything in the Grizzco manuals and all bonuses are connected to the golden eggs. Those you can keep. The power eggs are--”

“Also essential to my purposes,” says the bear. “And I have faith that, as before, the Great Zapfish will return.”

Pearl opens her mouth, trying to find the words she needs.

“I have no interest in your offer. You may go.” The speaker in the bear crackles into silence.

Pearl stares at it. She's failed. She's failed, completely, and totally.

And then it crackles on again. “Of course, if Inkopolis's safety were to be at stake, and the Great Zapfish weren't to reappear, I _may_ be persuaded. In a few months, perhaps a year's time. Of course, your offer would need to be... more enticing.”

It crackles out again, but Pearl's okay with it. She turns her back and walks out. Marina should be finished with those uniforms by now.

Only when she's in the hall does she let herself smirk. She'll talk to him again next Grizzco shift. Wear him down gradually.

She needs to do this. Her older relatives'll retire soon, and for ten, maybe fifteen years, someone has to run things. No reason Pearl can't do that around singing. And she _will_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hoping at least ONE of you would have a response that'd let me stick to the original 36 chapter total...
> 
> Scuse me, gonna slot that other one in now.
> 
> Oh. And Merry Squidmas!


	29. Trust

**Trust**

_You are rich, beautiful, respectable.  
_ _The world will try to screw you over.  
_ _No one will let their guard down around you,  
_ _Always watching, waiting, looking  
_ _for a way under your skin._  
_For their own benefit.  
_ _You must do the same._

One week until splatfest, and they may have finally finished this song.

Pearl rubs her eyes and stands up. “It's good,” she says, her voice hoarse. Then she clears her throat and clarifies, “It's _great._ Shark Bytes is gonna _splat_ them.”

Marina laughs and stretches. “I'm gonna go over the cords one more time,” she says. “I want those bits where we don't sing, just dance, to be perfect. We're gonna--” she yawns. “gonna have to figure out those moves tomorrow, what  _time_ is it?”

Pearl glances at the clock and groans. “Three in the fucking morning. We've gotta be at the studio in five hours.”

“And tomorrow I sign the papers for my new apartment,” Marina says. “We'll have to take separate vehicles.”

That's not okay, it's never gonna  _be_ okay, but what Pearl says is, “I should get a sign on that door. Marina's room. Because you're always welcome.” Pearl stretches again. “I'm gonna brush my teeth and scrub my face and tentacles, then I'll kick ya out, okay? And you can sleep in your own room.”

Marina nods, already leaning back over the desk.

Pearl ducks into her attached bathroom, but she doesn't start in on cleaning. She pulls out her phone and checks her messages, instead. According to her e-mails, the tents and sleeping bags she ordered online will be delivered tomorrow afternoon; good. They have two glorious weeks off in June, not long after this splatfest, and they plan to spend it lounging around, going to the beach and hiking Mount Nantai, and they've talked about camping three or four times now but Marina always brushes it off with 'Well, we don't have equipment.'

They do now. And Pearl's gonna drag it up the mountain and set it up ahead of time for a surprise—wait. Maybe it'd be better to have a servant bring it up. If she goes hiking without Marina, and she doesn't obviously need to scream—Marina can tell, half the time she suggests the hiking trips so Pearl can get it out—then Rina'll be suspicious. Pearl can't have that.

And if she got anyone outside her servants to take things up, they might leak it to the press.

That decided, Pearl jots down a few notes, then checks her last e-mail. From... SquistersUnited. Huh.

Pearl opens it and turns squid on the spot, the phone stuck to one tentacle or else she'd drop it, because the e-mail is from  _Callie_ asking if Off The Hook would like to be the Squid Sister's opening band in their next concert. The concert during hers and Rina's two weeks off.

Holy crap holy crap holy crap Callie's recovered enough from her ordeal to do  _concerts_ again and they want  _them_ to holy  _fuck_ . 

They agreed to do nothing—no performances, no signings, no official public appearances, for those two weeks. Relaxation and rest and songwriting and fun. But if Rina learns Pearl turned this down, she'll splat on the spot. Pearl replies at once, saying she needs to discuss it with Marina but she's sure they can make it work.

Pearl squeals a bit and pulls herself back together, desquids, to wash up. When she's finished, her phone vibrates;  _she's already got a response_ .

Callie's much less formal this time, with heart and winky emoji's, saying that Marie wants to talk to Marina about stuff and can Pearl keep this a secret for a bit so they can ask in person? And signed it with a mix of angels and devils, oh, Callie knows  _just_ how much of a fangirl Marina is, Pearl is  _not_ gonna spoil that.

Still she's all wound up and bouncing when she leaves the bathroom and stops short.

Marina is still there, at her desk, face-down on the pile of music, fast asleep. She shifts as Pearl watches, but doesn't wake.

She's positively adorable and Pearl has to snap her picture.  _Has_ to.


	30. Normality

**Normality**

_The simplest moments are the best.  
_ _Time with friends, or family;  
_ _A filling meal that's easy to cook;  
_ _A place you've been a thousand times.  
_ _Never dismiss them in favor of the exciting,  
_ _The unusual,_  
 _The strange.  
They are what make the world._

Pearl wakes up in squid form. She groans and crawls out from inside the sleeping bag, turns kid, stands to stretch, and knocks her head into the roof of the tent. It collapses on her. “FUCK!”

Over the flurry of her flailing she hears the music of Marina's laughter. It goes on and on as Pearl tries to break free, even as Marina says, “You okay?” with giggles in every word.

“Stupid... fucking...” Pearl can't find her _feet_ they're too tangled in fabric fuck. She turns back into a squid so it's smaller and uses her tentacles to hold the mass of fabric away from her. “Little help?”

Rina doesn't stop laughing the whole time, but the zipper gets unzipped and Pearl sees daylight—real daylight, not the muted tones of it through the tent fabric—moments later. She reaches her tentacles for it and Marina picks her up. “Sleep well?” she asks, still giggling.

Pearl wound up folding her sleeping bag over four times into its own pillow, the opening on top so she could still cover herself up, so she could turn squid and sleep at last. Sleeping in squid form is never as restful as sleeping in kid form but _cod_ even through the bottom of the tent the ground was like ice rocks digging into her. But Marina's smile is taking up her whole head, and the morning sunlight's tangled in her tentacles, and she's so beautiful Pearl's wrapped her tentacles around Marina in a hug before she's realized what she's doing. “The tent is trying to kill me.”

Marina starts laughing again, so hard she falls on her butt, jostling Pearl but not dropping her. Pearl just hangs on to Marina's shoulders, even though she doesn't _really_ need the excuse to hug her. She's just... Pearl has it bad, okay, Pearl knows this, and Marina is absolutely _gorgeous_ right now and Pearl doesn't wanna lose even a moment of this. Even if Marina is laughing at her.

Marina stops at last and wipes her eyes. “Never change, Pearlie,” she says. She chuckles once more. “Come on, we can't stay here all day. I boiled some eggs over the fire, and there's... well, we can stick the bread on sticks and roast it like marshmallows.”

“Sounds good to me,” Pearl says, releasing Rina at last.

Marina nods and stands up. “I'd like three pieces of toast, thanks.”

“Wait, won't you be--”

“I'll be setting the tent back up. We're staying another night! It's going to be awesome, we can stargaze again, make up our own constellations!”

Oh cod, Pearl forgot about that. And her clothes—her actual clothes, not her PJ's—are in the tent anyway, so those have to be fished out. But...

Remember, Pearl, she tells herself. This is for Marina.

The next bit of time passes in a blur, between eating and walking through the woods, Marina hesitating for a second by the stream they stopped at yesterday, but when they reach the top, Pearl's breath catches. She's always liked hiking, but the sky is clear, the sun warm against her face, and when she turns to look at Marina... Marina's crying. Pearl can't bring herself to interrupt.

Every bit of trouble getting here was worth it, every bit of lost sleep, even getting stuck in that fucking tent, for this moment.

But then the wind picks up again, whipping through Pearl's sheer undershirt, and she wraps her arms herself because she has to end this or she'll _freeze_. “I'm cold.”

Marina laughs and pulls her pink-and-yellow sweatshirt over her head. “Here,” she says, holding it out to Pearl.

Without her sweatshirt on, Marina's wearing a crop top. She looks _amazing_. Pearl glances away. “But you'll be cold without it. You've got on even less than me.”

“I'll be fine,” Marina says, and steps closer to Pearl. She shoves the sweatshirt into Pearl's hands. “The breeze feels nice.”

So does the sweatshirt, warm from Marina's body and smelling like the applewood soap she loves to use. Pearl removes her crown long enough to pull the hood up so she's engulfed in the smell, then tucks her hands into the sleeves. “Thanks.”

“Don't mention it.” Marina sits on the ground and lies back, spreading her arms out, smiling like... Pearl's never seen her smile like that before, like everything is _right_ with the world, like Marina's found something missing. “It's almost like you could fall into the sky.”

“Bet that'd be better than water.” Pearl can't handle seeing Marina look so—so _happy_ , like she might start crying again, so she looks away, further down the mountain, where... something metal gleams. “What's that?”

“Hmm?” Marina sits up partway and looks in the same direction. “I'm not sure. What are you looking at? The view's pretty, though.”

It's more than pretty, it's breathtaking. “Well, yeah, but...” It's not far away. Pearl takes out one dualie--she never goes anywhere without them, now, not after what Marina's _own family_ was ready to do to her--and hikes a short ways down to investigate. “Is this a walkie-talkie? I haven't seen one of these since I was a squid!”

Pearl grabs it and comes back up, Marina comes down a few steps to meet her halfway. "Are you sure? I haven't seen one in, well, ever."

Pearl's never seen one like this for certain: it's got so many buttons and settings it almost makes her dizzy to look at, but it's the right size and shape and fits nicely in her hand. She can't get it to turn on, though. "I think it's broken. Wanna hike back and fix it? I can make grilled cheese and we can jam after lunch." She didn't have people drag their instruments up here for nothing, after all.


	31. Privilege

**Privilege**

_The world is not a good place.  
_ _You cannot make it one.  
_ _Even trying will be an exercise in futility,  
_ _Not to mention anger, frustration, and tears._  
_Take what you can from it,  
_ _And live for yourself._

"I think I've got it," Marina mutters, hunching over her phone. "Almost... aha!"

"Supper is ready." Pearl takes a seat on the ground by Marina and passes her a plate. "Still trying to hack into the camera system?"

Marina nods. "It seems important. They need help, Pearl."

"Yeah, but we can't help them with everything." Pearl takes a bite of her sandwich. "I know you don't like it, Rina, but we should call the police. An old guy and a teenager trapped underground somewhere? And I bet he hit his head pretty good, too."

"We can't, Pearlie."

Pearl rolls her eyes. "Not right this minute! It's late, and even _my_ cell signal's the pits out here. Tomorrow we'll climb down and--"

"They're secret agents, Pearl," Marina says. "We can't--we've already blown their cover, sort of, we can't make it worse."

If Pearl keeps rolling her eyes, she's gonna get a headache. "Don't tell me you believe that, Rina."

Without a word, Marina turns her phone around, so Pearl can see the screen.

The angles are odd, but... Pearl leans closer, her eyes widening. An inkling in a baller makes their way down a thin track, picking up power eggs and leaving a pure pink trail. Some... creature lies ahead, a single tentacle on its head, shooting slow bright green ink; the baller explodes, splatting them, then reforms, and the inkling continues, using the conveyor belt ramp to make a jump.

Marina mutters something, ending in "had _no_ life signs," but Pearl isn't paying attention. She taps the screen to switch cameras, trying for a closer look, and her eyes widen.

Holy fucking crap.

Eight's suckers are on the outside. The only other person Pearl's ever met with that--that style is Marina.

Pearl glances at Marina and, yeah. Though, thinking back... Pearl's seen others like that, too. The ones who broke into Marina's apartment, the ones Pearl splatted. She wasn't paying much attention at the time, there was so much going on, but thinking back, they had outside tentacles, too. And they wore similar black outfits to that old rag she first met Marina wearing.

Pearl turns back to the screen, squinting to see through the baller as Eight jumps between moving platforms and... Eight is wearing a nearly identical outfit.

Holy fucking shit.

What Eight is doing is fucking impressive, but Pearl's eyes move, back and forth between Eight and Marina, comparing, making notes. It's hard to tell on the small screen, but there's no doubt in Pearl's mind: Eight is similar to Marina. Similar enough, in enough ways, that... no, they couldn't be related. Eight's too young (cod, it kills Pearl how young Eight is, watching what Eight has to do to try to get out of there) and Marina's brother was... well, never mind that now.

But Pearl still has to ask, “What makes you so sure they're secret agents? Or that the old guy is?”

Marina's chewing on her lips. She touches the screen with one finger, touching Eight's head through the screen, and doesn't seem to be paying attention to her own words as she mumbles, “How else does anyone ever get out?”

If Pearl were any further away than this, their heads pressed together, bent over Marina's phone, she never would've heard. As it is, Pearl swallows hard. How else does—what fucking cult did Marina _escape_ from?

But... Pearl winces as Eight enters another chamber, where the goal is to shove around a massive ball, and literally explodes. Sure, Eight respawns, but that is some major shit they're trapped in. And Marina...

Pearl glances at Marina from the corner of her eye. Marina doesn't look--she's not even surprised. Worried, sure, but... it's like she expected this. Like she's seen as bad, or heard of things just as bad, and it makes Pearl's stomach clench.

So fine. "Soon as they get outta there, we're taking the chopper and picking them up," Pearl says, and Marina whips her head around to stare at Pearl. "My family doctor'll see em both, because _cod_ , they'll probably need it. And if they don't have anyplace else, they'll spend the night with me. No way in hell is Eight going on the streets."

Marina opens her mouth and closes it again without making a sound. Pearl takes the phone from her. "Eat. I'll keep an eye on them."

Marina obeys without a word. Pearl stays beside her, one eye on Marina's phone... and the other on Marina.

She's got enough money. When Eight and Cuttlefish get here, she's gonna get them to tell her where Eight came from. What cult it is. And she'll go there and see for herself what sort of hell Marina came from--and that all of them know, if they ever wanna leave, she'll help them until they can support themselves.

Because that could have been Marina, splatted a dozen times and ink-stained, worn and weary without a memory, and Pearl would be nothing without her.


	32. Identity

**Identity**

_No one is ever fully at ease with themselves.  
_ _Be it appearance,  
_ _talent  
_ _strength.  
_ _If you know what makes someone uncomfortable,_  
 _Truly uncomfortable,  
_ _You know more than they'd like._

Pearl's phone buzzes on her stomach, jolting her awake. She stretches and rolls on her side, but her crown must've fallen off and now it's poking at her face, bringing her even more awake.

Terrific. She didn't get much sleep either night camping, and yesterday she and Rina were torn between writing songs and keeping a watch on Eight. She _needs_ the sleep, they're opening band for the Squid Sister's Return later this week (Pearl forgets which day), but it's already gone.

Pearl opens her eyes and grabs her phone, which dared to awaken her. The chatroom she and Marina use to talk to the captain is open... and a picture of _her_ is up.

One of her fans took it the night her last band broke up, and Cod, Pearl _hates_ it. How did it get here? Some sort of internet mumbo-jumbo privacy breach?

But then she scrolls up more, and—oh. She types out **Oooh, we're doing intros. Just read that part.** And Marina called her 'the coolest'. Pearl's cheeks heat. Maybe... no, Marina doesn't share her feelings. She needs to stop that.

Well, if Marina posted that, it's her turn to post a pic of Marina. And it takes her only seconds to find her favorite: the first pic she ever took of Marina, the day she saw Marina playing on the streets and took her shopping. That day lives in Pearl's mind, clear as yesterday: after hearing Marina's stomach growl, she ducked into a store and bought the largest sweatshirt they had, so even if Marina insisted she couldn't take it she could wear it and they could enter a sit-down restaurant without people insisting she broke dress code. Marina'd hesitated, staring at the menu, and pointed at the cheapest thing on there when asked what she wanted to order; Pearl didn't know she couldn't really read then, but she scolded Marina and told her to get either some crab legs or a baked fish so they can give the remains to Judd (and because those were two of the largest, most filling meals on the menu). And then Marina didn't know who Judd was...

Introducing Marina to Judd, seeing Pearl offer him the fish bones and the absolute delight on her face when he took them, when Pearl coaxed her to run her hand over his back, that it was _okay_ and Judd held still and gave a rumbling purr that made Marina scramble back, her face blushing teal as a smile broke out, shining in her eyes, and Judd holding still for her to approach again...

It didn't last long before Judd went to judge more turf wars, but while it did, Pearl snapped that picture. She looks at it a lot, when she misses Marina at night. When Marina moved into her first apartment, and when they had their first concert and separated after, when Pearl got a nasty cold and Marina brought soup to leave at her door, when Marina stood up to Pearl's parents and left that supper, and the entire night after Marina's family tried to kidnap her and drag her back to that hellhole, she sat in the hall by Marina's room, Marina's door open a crack so she could hear Marina's sniffles give way to soft breathing and occasional mutter in either language, and stared at the picture.

It shows everything about who Marina _was_ , and how far she's come, and how she's always been and will be a bright, delighted, joyful, _wonderful_ person.

But she can't just say that, so she types, **This is when we first met. Back in the day.** Because that's true as anything, and all other people need to know.

But that doesn't seem like enough, so Pearl goes through her pictures again, to just a month ago. To Marina sleeping, her head on one of Pearl's plushes, at the desk working on Shark Bytes. **Here's a bonus one, just cuz.**

Pearl can't get sappy about it, not in a chat with a _secret agent_ , not when Eight'll see this—though maybe this is sappy enough. Eight will see this and know Marina's here. That Marina wears her tentacles with the suckers on the outside, and once wore leather like Eight does, and that once Eight gets to the surface, Pearl and Marina will be there.

Then Marina rejoins the chat and yells, in text and voice both, _**“PEARL!”** _

Pearl leaves the chatroom, stretches, and gets off the couch just as Marina storms in. “You didn't just--”

“I couldn't resist, Rina, you just look so—when you're sleeping like that you don't look like an idol. You're like a real person.” Pearl smiles as winningly as she can. “Eight and Cuttlefish don't know we're idols, since we haven't told them, but they'll find out. I want them to know us for _us_ before then.”

Marina's face softens. “It's not that. It's...” she looks at the floor, lacing and unlacing her fingers. “The first one. Of me back then.”

Okay, that's confusing. Marina likes wearing more clothes now, which is a sha—which is a _good_ thing, because standards and decency and all that, but with her pose you can barely notice it. “It's a _good picture,_ Rina. You're recognizable and just so happy.”

Rina shakes her head, her tentacles twisting. “I don't like... remembering. How I used to be. _What_ I used to be.”

What?

But Marina turns and walks away before Pearl can ask.


	33. Secrets

**Secrets**

_You are my daughter.  
_ _Mine, understand?  
_ _I permit your whims,  
_ _I enforce the rules.  
_ _You own nothing,  
_ _Because you owe me everything.  
_ _Never speak of 'privacy' again._

Pearl kicks open the door and drops her keys on the table outside their rooms. “Doesn't matter how many concerts we do, I'm always dead after.”

“Not too dead to devour a mountain of fries.” Marina yawns into her hand. “That was fun.”

“Hey, if the Squid Sisters wanna treat us, it's not like we're gonna say no.” Pearl doesn't wanna move yet, so she starts stripping down right there, in the hall. She and Rina have changed in the same room often enough. “You did a good job keeping the fangirl contained, too.”

“No slips at all,” Marina say, and heads for her room.

“No, you slipped.”

“Did _not_.”

“When they called us onstage to do Now Or Never with them. I was surprised you didn't squeal out loud.”

Marina closes the door most of the way; Pearl goes to her own room to pull on shorts and the sweater Marina loaned her on the mountain. “I wasn't that bad,” Rina calls.

Oh, it's on. Pearl pulls out her phone and flicks through to the reviews. Third one down is a picture of their last song with the Squid Sisters, Now Or Never, all of them dancing and having a _blast_. And it mentions how the Squid Sisters seem to be making up for lost time, and supporting upcoming talent, and there it is: ' _Always a treat to see Marina with her heroes.'_

Pearl highlights that sentence and goes to Marina's room, shoves the phone through the crack in the door so she can see it.

Marina groans and pushes the door open, then eyes what Pearl's wearing. “Am I ever going to get my hoodie back?”

Pearl tucks her phone in its pocket. “It's mine now.”

Marina groans and shuts the door in her face. Pearl just laughs. In fact, because she knows it'll amuse Marina, she goes all-out laughing and is lying on the floor, still at it, when Marina emerges a moment later, phone in hand. “I'm headed back to my place for my charger. Be back soon.”

Pearl stops laughing and pushes herself up. “You could borrow mine, you know.”

“Let a girl have her space, Pearlie.” Rina knocks Pearl's crown off and runs off, laughing.

“Hey!” Pearl calls after her, but Marina doesn't stop. Pearl sighs and slumps to the floor again. Marina's probably right. She and Pearl haven't been apart for more than a few minutes since they went on the camping trip: writing songs, putting on shows, and poring over the phone to watch Eight and use the chat room whenever they have a free moment. And it's not like Marina won't be safe. Her guards have a room by the front door, and they'll be following her motorcycle in their car. They'll stay alert until they're sure Marina's safe in her apartment, and she'll text them before she leaves again.

That doesn't mean Pearl _likes_ it.

She's still overstuffed from the meal with the Squid Sisters, and without Marina around she doesn't feel like playing music. There are some books she could read, of course, but she's not in a reading mood. And sure, she could watch a show or video, but all the series she's working through now she's watching with _Rina_.

Pearl makes her way to her room and flops on her bed instead. She pulls out the chat room, but without Marina there, there's not even—wait. Captain Cuttlefish. **But maybe I'll do a little research on you. See whhat kinda dirt I can dig up.**

Sure, the captain types back that he has nothing to hide, but Pearl's on a mission now. First place to look: Squidipedia. Where... wow, Captain Cuttlefish has his own page. **The heck is this? “The Squidbeak Splatoon, led by Second Lieutenant Cuttlefish, visited grievous losses upon the forces of the enemy during the bitter siege of Arowana Castle."**

Huh. Guess that makes sense. An old lieutenant got upgraded to Captain and now heads secret agents doing... honestly, Pearl can't even guess, but if they were infiltrating the sort of craphole he and Eight are in now, then it's probably a good thing they're doing stuff.

Pearl scrolls through the article on the captain for a while, reading, but Marina _still_ isn't back. Geeze, how long does it take to grab a charger? **Yo what's taking Marina so long?** she types, then goes to the guard company's notes. It said she went into her apartment, apartment appeared safe, and... okay, she hasn't come out yet. Guess she did want her space.

Well, if Marina's not around, and she's not in the chat room, she can't protest if Pearl brags about her a bit. **That reminds me, we can check in on 8 using our video link, but you can't see us, right cap?**

**thats correct.**

Time for some bragging. **So you probably can't tell but just between you and me, Marina's kind of a weirdo. She's like freakishly tall and way to smart for her own good  
** **Just the other day she built an entire battle stage all by herself. It had huge floating rocks and everything. Crazy right?**

Cuttlefish responds at once. **making rocks float.  
** **that's octo tech**

That's... what? **What do you mean?**

**you know, the octarian menace.**

Pearl rolls her eyes. Is the captain another of those looneys who thinks Octarians are—wait, he did fight them in the war. If they had that sort of technology, and Marina grew up in a freaking cult that thought they were still around, it'd make sense for them to teach her some of their tech. Maybe that one conspiracy theory is right, and they actually are still alive somehow. Or—Pearl chuckles a bit and types, **Hold up. You're not sayin Marina is working for the Octarian army. Are you?**

Because as _if_.

**i think you need to see this. its from my top secret octarian dossier**

A file pops up. Pearl clicks on it, waits for it to load. Honestly, the old dude's probably lost it, having been down there for so--

The file finishes loading.  Marina Ida  it says on the top, and a picture of Marina—of _Marina_ , a headshot of—she's got on the same so-called shirt Pearl met her in, and the goggles are unbroken and over her eyes, and seaweed in her hair, but it's Marina. It's Marina, it's fucking _Marina_ , and plain as day below it _Octarian Combat Engineer—whereabouts unknown._

It's _Marina_. It's Marina, and, and—age 6, enrolled in school; age 9, skipped multiple grades, graduated, age 10, member of flooder design team—flooders. Pearl _knows_ those. They've splatted Eight about a dozen times already, and—and weren't they also in a splatfest stage?

Oh hell no. **member of flooder design team?**

**those flooders are ruthless splatting machines they did in agent 3 more times than I can count.**

No, no, no, no, _no_ . **WHAT. nah, Marina would never design something like that.**

 _Age 13, joined Slimeskin Garrison, specialized in improving the Great Octoweapons_ .  
_Age 16, assigned to DJ Octavio's wasabi supply unit. Earned multiple commendations.  
_ _Same year: went AWOL after coming within audible range of the Calamari Inkantation sung by the New Squidbeak Splatoon._

Calamari Inkantation.

Pearl drops her phone.

Marina Ida—an octarian, because they're not extinct. An incredibly smart Octarian who graduated school at age _nine,_ who specialized in designing weapons, who heard Calamari Inkantation and vanished after saying 'This changes everything.'  
Marina from Off The Hook, her partner, her closest friend, who doesn't understand anything about Inkling culture and celebrated Octivus growing up, who believes Octarians are real, who never questioned that Captain Cuttlefish was a secret agent.

 **The battle stages she makes involve traps and stuff where you float, and you don't see things like that anywhere else...** Anywhere but the mess of rooms and trials Eight is stuck in.

 _Marina,_ who idolizes the Squid Sisters and said that Calamari Inkantation changed her life. That that song is why she ran away. **OH SNAP I remember her saying something about the Calamari Inkantation changing her life! and it's right there in the file!**

It's... those people who tried to kidnap Marina? Octarians. The reason she never talks about her past? _Octarian_. Why Marina is always, always, _always_ so afraid and private about, well, everything? OCTARIAN.

**that song has powers no one can explain no fan of that song is a foe of mine**

No _fan_ ... holy fuck, that's... Marina is an Octoling. She's an Octarian. Pearl closes her eyes, feeling like a million billion questions she didn't know she had have stopped whirling around her head. **Right?! She might have some skeletons in her closet, but who doesn't am i right? Marina is one of the best people i know.** And it doesn't matter ONE BIT if Marina is an Inkling or an Octoling or a fucking _salmonid_ , she's Marina and she's Pearl's best friend.

**i guess shes okay for an octo**

Fuck that. He doesn't know Marina. **I swear, cuttlefish. If you try to splat Marina I WILL CUT A FISH. U GOT THAT?**

**i um ok**

_Good_. Glad that's settled.

Pearl types out a message to Eight, because cod knows Eight'll see this soon enough—is Eight an Octarian too? Is it just that Octolings have their suckers on the outside, and Inklings have them inside?

Pearl buries her head in the pillow. Cod, she never would've expected—she never _did_ expect. Soon as she sees Marina, or Marina types in the chat room, or _anything_ , she needs to apologize. Marina kept this hidden for so long, she must not want Pearl—or _anyone—_ to know about it. And she went behind Marina's back to find out. Sort of. Okay, so she didn't mean to, but...

Pearl covers her eyes and groans.


	34. Marina

**Marina**

_No, Pearl, I can safely say I've never petted a cat before. Never even touched one. It's... that noise is_ adorable _, I wonder who decided on that?  
_ _I can't believe this is happening, I can't. I'll wake up someday, I know it.  
_ _My parents aren't at all like yours, but, well, when you only see them at holidays it's hard to judge.  
_ _I stopped doing what they told me, but that doesn't make it easy, Pearl. I don't think I'll ever really be free of it._  
 _Someone wants me to do this, Pearl, and if I try to avoid it I'll only wind up back here. It'll just be less pleasant.  
_ _We didn't say 'sweet dreams' at home. We said 'may darkness hold you safe'. It's more reliable._

In the car, Pearl cusses and opens a new text message. **Rina I'm sorry I'm so sorry** _**please** _ **respond.**

But Marina doesn't respond. Pearl's hands shake as she shoves her phone in her pocket (vibration AND ringer on) and moves to the car's fridge. Gropes behind it for the spare key to Marina's apartment, the one she gave Pearl just a couple weeks ago, before—before—before Pearl knew who Marina was.

Pearl pulls out her phone to check. Nothing. It's now been _eighteen_ minutes since Marina responded. Pearl shoots off another text as driver slows the car. “I'll wait here,” he says.

Pearl nods and leaps out, runs to the building, grabs the handle and—locked. Pearl stares at the keypad, digs out her phone ( _nineteen_ minutes), she wrote it down here. 6286. As Pearl types in the numbers, the letters below each number leap out at her: OCTO.

Whether it's coincidence or Marina chose this passcode herself, it's been staring Pearl in the face.

Pearl stumbles into the lobby, glances around. Elevator, there. Marina's on floor eight, apartment 808—so many eights. So much... Octarian, Octarian, Octarian.

Pearl's twitchy and _scared_ because Marina stopped replying and Marina knows Pearl knows, now, and _why did she stop replying?_ Is she afraid Pearl'll treat her different? Because Pearl sure as _hell_ isn't going to. Is Marina mad at her for finding out? Because Pearl will do whatever, _whatever_ , it takes to make up for this. Does Marina think Pearl's mad because Marina hid this? Because Pearl is gonna do whatever it takes to dispel _that_ notion.

Twenty minutes. Still no response. The elevator dings and Pearl shoves her phone into the hoodie pocket, shoves through the door as soon as it's open enough, and takes off down the hall at a run.

The door's closed. And locked. Pearl knocks on it. “Marina?”

There's no answer. None at all. Pearl knocks again, harder. “ _Rina!_ You haven't responded to _anything_ in, like, twenty minutes! Open up!”

Still no response, no reply. Pearl digs in her pocket for the key Marina gave to her, ages back, pushes it in the door, unlocks it, shoves the key away. Another deep breath. Cod, Pearl _hates_ apologies, but she'll do it. She'll--

she'll push open the door and see Marina lying on her side on the floor in front of her couch, her arms wrapped around her legs and hugging them to her chest, her tentacles all clinging to herself as tight as they can. She stares at Pearl with tears in wide eyes and flinches back against the couch.

Pearl swallows hard. “Rina--”

Marina turns squid— _octo,_ now that Pearl knows she can see the differences, the more rounded head and—and Marina slides under the couch.

“Oh no you...” Pearl stops herself. Takes a breath in, lets it out. _Fear_. Why would Rina be scared of her? I mean, nervous, or uncomfortable, Pearl was ready for. But that expression was closer to the one Marina had before her first turf war, almost matching the one she had when Pearl burst into her last apartment, dualies at the ready.

When Marina's scared, or sad, or uncomfortable, she likes contact. She hugs Pearl, or grabs her hand, for any reason. And Pearl isn't going to talk to the fucking couch.

So she takes another deep breath to steady herself and turns squid, sliding under the couch to join Marina and shading her ink to match. “You're not all right,” Pearl says, first wrapping her tentacles around Marina's, even her short one, then pulling her into a hug; Pearl has spare tentacles to wrap around her, not because they all grew wrong (like she's thought for _years_ , cod Pearl was an idiot) but because she's an entirely different species. Marina wriggles, trying to tug away, but if holding her's the only way Pearl can get her to listen, then cod Pearl's gonna do it. “I'm sorry Rina. I am _so sorry._ I didn't mean to dig into your past like that.”

Marina pulls her tentacles. “What are you _doing?_ ” Marina hiccups—she's trying not to cry, and Pearl hangs on, because every time in the past when Marina's cried she's clung to Pearl like a lifeline and Pearl is going to comfort her, damnit. “I'm—you're an inkling. I'm...” Marina's voice cracks; Pearl gives her a little squeeze. “I'm _not._ And you know it now.”

She thinks Pearl is upset. “And I don't care.” She holds Marina closer as she starts to sob. “I'm only sorry I found out like this.”

Marina pulls again, trying to get away. “We're _enemies,_ ” she says, and Pearl's so shocked her grip slackens. “Octolings, inklings—I spent my _whole life_ being told the only thing to do if I met one was _splat_ them.” Holy shit. “Was—I've been waiting for someone to splat _me_ since I got here.” What the actual fuck. “So just... just get it over with.”

Holy fucking shit. “I am going to _fucking splat_ whoever told you that,” Pearl snaps, feeling Marina trembling against her. She pulls back enough to look Rina in the face, and Rina has her eyes clenched shut, bracing herself for all she's worth. “Rina. Look at me.”

It takes Marina several moments to open her eyes, to take deep shuddering breaths and convince herself to look, and Pearl doesn't let go. She doesn't let go, or stop cursing Marina's—whoever it was that taught Marina that—the whole time. She doesn't do it out loud, not now, but...

But when Pearl sees Marina's eyes open, she says, speaking slow and clear and steady as she can manage, with every bit of conviction in her voice as Pearl's ever managed, _“No one_ is going to splat you while I'm around.”

“But—” Marina's voice chokes on a sob.

“Shhh.” Pearl pulls Marina close again. “I'm here.”

Pearl's twitchy now, still, as Marina sobs in her tentacles, but for a different reason. She wants to run—to go and find the other Octarians, to tell them just how _stupid_ that is, how _amazing_ Rina is, and... but no. She doesn't know where, and besides. Marina needs her.

Needs her to hold her tight, to match the grip Marina's got her in, now, wrapped around each other as Marina sobs so hard both of them shake with it. Needs Pearl to stroke the back of Marina's head, gently, and rub her back and encourage her to breathe, because she's crying so hard Pearl's wondering if she's getting air at all.

Who told her that Inklings and Octolings have to be enemies? Who told her that she'd be splatted? How long has Marina been—been _terrified,_ lying awake at night, just... Marina expected _her_ to do it. To splat... to...

Pearl shakes her head, hard, trying to dispel the thoughts and continues rubbing Marina's back. She strokes Marina's shortest tentacle. She murmurs words of assurance, repeating herself and probably speaking nonsense, until she settles for just humming soothing notes.

Even when Marina stops crying, she stays pressed against Pearl, trembling slightly, her breathing catching in hiccups. Only when her breathing slows does Pearl coax Marina out from under the couch and read her the whole text message conversation, reassuring her—again—that she's fine. She's safe. Pearl will protect her.

Marina opens her mouth, closes it, and picks up her own phone. **Do you think I'll still be welcome in Inkopolis? Once everyone knows I'm an octoling?**

Pearl's eyes widen, and she doesn't hesitate, her fingers flying as she replies in the group chat: **ARE YOU KIDDING? Of course you will! Everyone loves you!**

_I_ love you, Pearl thinks, but those words choke in her mouth. Instead, she gives Marina's shoulders a squeeze. “You're not getting rid of me, Rina. That's a promise. No matter _what_ , I'm here for you.” I love you.

Right then and there, Pearl decides she needs to tell Marina. Not today, not when Marina's so—so out of it, but soon. Soon as Eight and Cuttlefish are safe. Because, Octarian or not, fucking _contract_ or not, Pearl loves Marina. And Marina needs to fucking know it.


	35. Fly

**Fly**

_So, Pearl and Marina..._

_For the last time, THEY ARE NOT TOGETHER._

_But their chemistry slaps, yo.  
_ _And have you SEEN the way Pearl looks at her?_

_I have, okay.  
_ _I don't think anyone in Inkopolis hasn't.  
_ _But they're not together._

_They'd be so cute, though!_

_There's about eighteen thousand posts that agree with you.  
_ _People are writing fucking realperson fic about them.  
_ _But maybe Marina's not into it?_

_Or maybe Pearl's just shy._

_Shy? Pearl?  
_ _You're joking, right?_

“Okay, I'm willing to call this song completely, totally, unchangeably _finished_ ,” Pearl says, bouncing on her toes.

Marina laughs. “Well, maybe not unchangeably,” she says. She digs out her phone and glances at it, checking on Eight, then shoves it away again. “Guess I didn't need the keytar after all.”

“And I know what we should call it,” Pearl says. She keeps bouncing, keeps grinning.

Marina tilts her head towards Pearl and raises an eyebrow.

Pearl grins. “Fly, Octo, Fly.”

Marina takes a step back. “Pearl, no,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself and letting the keytar dangle by its strap. “I don't... I don't want everyone to know yet.”

“They won't know,” Pearl promises. “They won't. But that's what we need to call this.” She drums on the keyboard with her fingers.

“I don't know, Pearl,” Marina says, looking away. “I mean, _you_ know, and that's okay, but...”

“Yeah, we don't have to tell _everyone._ ” Pearl gets it, she does, but Marina's not getting her here. “But we've had songs before about things that weren't real, right? Nasty Majesty was _totally_ about terrible people in power when, wait.” Marina's told Pearl some things, about her life before. They live in massive underground domes you can access by technology controlled by _kettles_ , and they're falling apart. People are assigned jobs based on need and aptitude, and no one is allowed to refuse. You eat what you're given or you don't eat. So... “Are _your_ lyrics about a real person?”

Marina blushes and looks at her keytar. “Kinda.”

With the little Pearl knows about how Octarian society is run, and the way Marina _acts_ all the time—like she'll be splatted if she isn't perfect, her absolute terror at being unable to leave somewhere... fuck. “No _wonder_ you left.” Pearl lets out a breath. Inkopolis isn't perfect, there are always disagreements among people and some shady stuff going on in the back alleys, but it's nothing compared to this. “Eight'll hear that shit and stay in Inkopolis for sure.”

Marina nods without looking at her. Pearl sighs and drags a hand down her face. Where was she...? “But, anyway, a lot of our stuff is either hypothetical or just has a good beat, ya know? Ebb and Flow's about life's ups and downs, Color Pulse the pumping of a turf war, people'll just think it's a cool fantasy. 'Fly, Octo, Fly.' What we'd say to an Octoling who came to Inkopolis now, if there were any left.” Pearl crosses her arms, because she's thought long and hard about this and she wants Marina to _listen_. “All that stuff about jumping to where you're wanted, about taking risks and being rewarded, you said your part's basically what you wanted to tell Eight, right? Things will be better if Eight gets here, so Eight has to _keep going._ ”

Marina keeps looking at her keytar, not at Pearl. “Yeah, it is.”

She's not getting it, is she? Fuck it, maybe Pearl _shouldn't_ wait any longer. “And _my_ part is what I want to say to the smartest, bravest, kindest person I know.”

Marina stares at the floor. “Uh, who?”

Uggggh. “I'm sick of this. _You_ , Rina.”

Now Marina looks at her. “I'm not—not brave. Or particularly kind, or,”

“Stop it.” Pearl needs to tell her, and Pearl's gonna tell her today. Screw waiting for Eight to get out. Pearl steps around the turntables and takes off Rina's keytar. “You left a toxic situation and gave up _everything_ to come to a place you knew nothing about. You decided to try to make me your band member off nothing but one meeting and a hunch.” Pearl reaches up one hand to cup Marina's cheek; Marina leans into it. "You were willing to support yourself playing on the _streets._ And you still don't want to hurt anyone, even those you left behind, so much that you don't even like _turf war_.”

Marina nuzzles her cheek against Pearl's hand for a moment, then blinks and pulls away, her cheeks shading teal. “It's not that,” she says, twisting her hands together and looking pointedly at the turntables instead of at Pearl. "It's--you don't know some of the things I did."

We're at this again. Pearl's heard more and less about Marina's life before she ran away than she ever wanted to--more because, cod, _no one_ should be stuck with that sort of shit, and less because she wants to know _everything_ about Marina. "Don't care. You're not that person now. Besides," and this is the part that Pearl's gonna pound through Marina's skull forever, "did you have a choice?"

Other days, Marina would argue, say how she could've refused... but then she wouldn't eat, or have a place to sleep (once she finished school and they took her from her parents), or they'd even splats her. Pearl almost anticipates it, because it always ends with Rina looking less guilty than when they started. Today, though, Marina drops to the floor and wraps her arms around her legs. "You don't understand."

Pearl plops on the floor right by Rina and hugs her. This has been happening a lot, too, and Pearl braces herself. "So tell me." Whatever comes next, Pearl's not gonna like it. But it's part of Marina--and she's not gonna stop feeling guilty, or feel like Inkopolis will accept her, until Pearl's heard _all_ of it.

"I don't know where to _start_ ," Marina says, her voice cracking, and Pearl hugs her just a bit tighter. Here we go. “Cod, Pearl, I spent _years_ thinking this wasn't real. I was hallucinating, it was--”

“Why the _fuck_ would you think you were dreaming this?!” That part is new, and Pearl has to take a deep breath herself. "That would be so fucked up."

Normally, this'd be where Marina'd snuggle closer, or at least _look_ at Pearl, but she stays rigid. "The domes are—were, probably still are—falling apart. Needed more power. I helped steal the zapfish; it didn't just go missing.”

Cod. No wonder this bit hasn't come out before; Marina knows what Pearl's family does, that Pearl's personally spent a lot of money and time trying to make up for the Great Zapfish's absence. But she definitely didn't kidnap it the _second_ time it went missing, and besides, Marina didn't know any better. "So?"

“My _specialty_ , as a combat engineer, was designing weapons to hopefully splat inklings. Permanently.”

Pearl frees one hand to squeeze her shoulder. “You were barely _turf war age_ , Rina, it's okay.” She'd guessed as much, after some things Rina told her.

“It's—my goggles broke." Pearl's brain nearly breaks at that statement. Wha? "There's a group, I guess they're secret agents or something, that went in and dealt with it, and they played Calamari Inkantation during it, and my goggles broke.”

Why the fuck does that matter. “New Squidbeak Splatoon, according to that file the captain showed us,” Pearl says; she knows this, and Rina _knows_ she knows this, so she must be rattled still. “Why does it matter that your goggles broke?”

A strangled noise escapes Marina. "My _hypno_ goggles." What. "Designed to keep me a productive member of society." The fuck. "Everyone wears them." Marina raises her head to look at Pearl at last, trying to smile through her resignation and tears.

That is fucked up. That is SO fucked up. Does Marina even _know_ how fucked that is? Maybe not--she lived it for so long, she just..

“I could see both—walking around Mount Nantai with my family and marching to the next outpost to orders, buildings that collapsed with people in them and buildings being sealed for repairs, like two movies playing on top of each other"

Holy fucking fuck it got worse _. How_ could this even get worse. Marina--until right before she ran away, she didn't even know what she was _doing_ , and she still blames herself. Of course she wasn't sure it was fucking real, when she got here! What the actual fuck.

"I was supposed to get a pair of hypnoshades, better quality, you can't even tell you're wearing them even if you touch your face, but the building I was in started breaking apart when—I couldn't tell if they'd managed it and it was some elaborate illusion, or if I'd actually escaped.”

Pearl shakes her head once, hard, not denying it, just... holy. Okay, is there _anything_ Pearl can do to convince Marina otherwise?

Well... there _is_ one thing, and it's something Pearl's wanted to do for a very long time.

"I'm still not sure, some days, but," Fuck it.

Pearl grabs Marina's face in both hands, leans forward, and kisses her. She takes her time, savoring the feeling of Marina's lips, a little chapped, the way their beaks bump together, feeling how Marina leans into it, like it's okay. When she breaks the kiss and opens her eyes at last, lets go of Marina's face, Marina has her eyes closed, a grin pressing her lips in at the corners."I'm not a fucking illusion, Rina," she says, when Marina opens her eyes. Pearl moves one hand to brush Marina's longest tentacle out of her eyes, a motion she's wanted to make for months. “I'm here. And you are the absolute _best_ , most _amazing_ person I know, and you can be an Octoling, or hell, you could be a _salmonid_ and I'd still love you.”

There. She said it. And Marina--Marina's not recoiling. She presses one hand to her mouth, still with wide eyes, a few tears remaining, and she sounds almost giddy as she asks, "Did you mean that?"

Pearl doesn't have any words to respond, and Marina isn't running away--she's even smiling--so Pearl pulls her in again. This time, Marina kisses back, tilting her head so their beaks just brush, her hands going to Pearl's shoulders, and when Pearl pulls away to catch her breath all she can think is holy _shit_ Marina likes her, too.

Then Marina's the one pulling _Pearl_ close, and this time they let their beaks touch deliberately, poking at each other in such a _right_ way shivers fly down Pearl's neck and it's perfect. It's perfect. It's perfect.

But she has to breathe, so Pearl pulls away at last, and gazes at Marina--her friend, her musical partner, maybe more. Marina looks flushed, and rumpled, still some tear stains on her cheeks, but she also looks more satisfied than Little Judd with a bowl of cream, and that warms Pearl inside and out. "You have no _idea_ how long I've wanted to do that." She takes a deep breath, staring at Marina's grin. Little backwards, but fuck it. “Marina Ida, Octoling, hypnotized bad-ass, awesome musician and whatever the fuck else you wanna talk about, wanna be my girlfriend? I mean, I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but, ya know.”

Marina starts to laugh. "We--our contracts," she gasps out, holding her stomach; Pearl starts to giggle as well. “We can't be in a relationship, right? And, and we're supposed to be—be getting _rid_ of, of those rumors, of, oh _cod_." Marina doubles over clutching her sides.

Pearl cant stop laughing, either. _Finally._ “I would've worked up the courage a lot sooner if it weren't for that damn contract,” Pearl confesses. Fuck, Marina--they could've done this years ago. “I'd been rehearsing what to say in my head for _weeks_ when Marie dropped that on us, and then you were so fucking insistent... fine. Marina Ida, will you be my _secret_ girlfriend? And I fucking love your last name, have I told you that yet, you could've told me it _years_ ago.”

Marina's still laughing, but she nods. "Yes, Pearl, I will be."

And finally, finally, something's going right.


	36. Future

**Future**

_You're way too serious, little Pearlie.  
_ _Live in the moment!  
_ _Have fun, and don't worry.  
_ _What happens, happens._  
_You're a Houzuki.  
_ _ Nothing  _ really __ bad will ever happen to you.

Pearl's throat hurts, her lungs hurt, shell, her entire _mouth_ hurts but she did it. Pearl just screamed a murder statue with a freaking laser beam out of existence. Pearl spreads her arms wide and she'd laugh if it didn't hurt, because if _anything_ deserves a cocky victory pose _that_ sure does.

Marina jumps down, and Pearl half turns to grin, but then Marina's grabbing Pearl in a hug so hard and sudden and she never stopped running that they both fall over. It knocks the wind out of Pearl, great,  _another_ pain, but she doesn't really mind. Sure, she wiggles her arms and legs for appearances sake, but if Marina wants to lie on top of her hugging her, haloed in the pre-dawn light, Pearl isn't  _really_ gonna complain.

Still, she has a reputation. “You're crushing me.”

Marina's tentacles press together, hiding their faces from the world, and the light, as Marina presses a fast kiss to Pearl's cheek and  _cod_ Pearl didn't think her grin could get any wider. “It's over,” Marina says.

“And it was _awesome,”_ Pearl agrees. They just freaking saved the world, things don't get much more awesome than that. 

“You're safe.”

Aww, was Marina worried? Pearl stops flailing to hug her back. “You think a measly statue and gooball could hurt me?” Pearl tugs one of Marina's long tentacles.

The end of Marina's tentacle twists, wraps around Pearl's wrist, like she has to keep touching Pearl however she can and if tentacles can hug then  _wow_ Pearl never really thought of how much more Marina uses her tentacles in kid form than Pearl does. Maybe that's an Octoling thing? 

But then Marina presses her face to Pearl's shoulder and whispers, “It's  _real.”_

_Of course it's real_ , the words stop on the tip of Pearl's tongue, because Marina told her about hypnogoggles and  _fuck_ DJ Octavio and Octarian society. Has Marina ever—ever said those words to her before? She knows Marina said 'this can't be real' and 'it isn't real' when they were performing, but Pearl thought those were just nerves. She clears her throat. Let's keep it light-hearted. “Man, if I knew destroying stuff on purpose could convince you of that, I would've done it  _ages_ ago.”

Marina pulls away and looks down at Pearl, her eyebrows knitted. “How are we going to cover _this_ up from the media?”

Pearl laughs, the force of her laughter tearing her throat and making her wince but fuck it, she needs this and Marina's laughing, too, at the sheer _absurdity_ of saving the world and needing to keep it a secret. Okay, Pearl's covered up enough screw-ups to think of something, let's see. That was, technically, their first performance of Fly, Octo, Fly. “We'll tell them we were shooting a music video for our latest song and it went wrong,” Pearl says, and shoves at Marina until Marina lets her up. “I'll bring out the Princess Cannon _every concert_ we do Fly Octo Fly. It'll be the _thing_. You can do it, go you, come up and join us, we want Octarians in our society, and oh yeah, _booya.”_

Marina giggles. “How long until people stop bringing breakables to our shows?”

“Three experiences,” Pearl says at once. It's never the first or second time, people don't expect it the first time and think it's a one-off the second time. Over Marina's shoulder, the sky starts to turn the faintest pink; Eight stares at the sky, jaw slack. “Come on, I wanna watch the sunrise. It's gonna be _gorgeous._ And I bet Eight's never seen one, since you didn't, before you left.” 

Pearl glances at Marina in time to see her blush teal and look away.

That won't do. Pearl stands up and stretches, then bends to brush Marina's tentacle out of her face. “Hey. Knowing this just means I can almost understand how much it means to you. And that just makes it even more beautiful.”

Marina's blush gets deeper, but she smiles. Pearl grabs Eight and tugs Eight to the end of the platform to watch. Cuttlefish and the unconscious other inkling that was down there, now awake and being introduced as Agent 3, join them; Marina's shoulders tense and she puts herself on the other side of Pearl, as far from 3 as she can get.

Probably for some understandable reason. Maybe Cuttlefish'll share more of those dossiers. Or maybe Marina will tell her later. But it's not as important as sitting between Marina and Eight and watching their faces, turning back and forth to see Eight's dropped jaw and hear Eight's little gasping noises while Marina's eyes fill with tears and they slip down her face, silent, while she has the most nostalgic and joyful smile Pearl's ever seen.

Beyond Eight, Captain Cuttlefish is waking on about what makes sunsets work, and how they looked different back in  _his_ day, but Pearl tunes him out. Agent 3 doesn't say a word, though 3 rubs their head regularly. Fine by Pearl.

They're almost back at Inkopolis by the time the light show ends and Pearl stretches. Time to do stuff again. “Captain, uh, Three, do you two have places to stay?”

“Of course we do! Why, we've lived in Inkopolis--”

“Fine,” Pearl interrupts. “Marina, Eight can stay in your spare room, right?” The one set up with a bed for Pearl.

“Of course,” Marina says. “It'll be wonderful to have you, Eight.”

Eight smiles and ducks their head. That's fine. Marina should know everything a new Octarian would want to know. Maybe be able to introduce Eight to other Octarians on the surface, too.

“We need to debrief--”

Pearl interrupts Captain. “You all need to  _rest_ . And I need to deal with the media. You can go in the chat room, set something up for tomorrow or the next day, we'll be there.” Pearl bends to touch her toes. “Right now, though, I've got some fucking paparazzi to deal with.”


	37. Separate

**Separate**

_Living in harmony with others takes practice.  
_ _Sometimes, it's a matter of compromise,  
of sharing space,  
of being kind when anger shouts.  
_ _Other times, it's untenable.  
_ _Loneliness is the world's second worst fate,  
_ _But the worst_  
_Is to hide yourself  
_ _So others will accept you._

The first apartment is a two bedroom, with ratty carpeting that doesn't quite cover the squeaking boards underneath it, but windows that show a clear view of Mount Nantai in the distance and within walking distance to work. Even now, though, Pearl can hear people talking through the walls.

The third apartment has three bedrooms, new carpeting, new plumbing. It's in the basement, the windows no wider than Pearl's hand, and Marina gets that twitchy look when she's down there looking with Pearl.

The eighth apartment is on the tenth floor of a building that gets narrower as it goes up, resulting in a studio that takes the entire top floor. No neighbors above or on either side to be bothered by any noise she makes, and the cool boards beneath her feet can be soundproofed with enough rugs. The attached bathroom isn't big enough for a tub of any size, and the shower stutters and gasps when she turns it on, but Pearl likes it anyway. She can section off her bed with curtains, if she wants, or a place for a couch and TV, but a piano will fit against  _that_ wall and she can put a drum kit next to it and...

And it's two doors down from Marina's building.

Pearl turns to Marina and the realtor, an urchin named Hydra. “When can I move in?

Hydra chuckles. “End of the month. One of the skylights is leaking, and we need to replace it. There's also a bit of paperwork for you to finish before we take that step, young lady.”

Pearl nods and lets out a long breath. She looks around the room again. “And I can—I can paint the walls?”

“If you put nails in them, you'll have to fix the holes before moving out, or be charged a fee for us doing it,” Hydra rattles off. “Walls have to be painted back to white before you leave. It's all covered in the rental agreement. If you wait two months, we'll be doing some plumbing work, you'll have to clear out for a couple days while we do that if you've already moved in.”

Pearl glances sideways at Marina, who nods. Eight's been looking at getting an apartment, sharing it with Three or Four... Pearl doesn't know their real names, hasn't even met Four, they're trying so hard to take the whole 'secret agent' thing seriously when every week one of them grabs Eight to teach Eight what makes ice cream ice cream or exactly what 'fresh' means. “I'll have a place to stay when you do that,” Pearl says.

“Right, then,” Hydra says. “You can stay up here and look around some more, if you'd like; I'll head back to the office and get the paperwork ready.” Hydra glances between them. “Will it be the both of you moving in?”

“Just Pearl,” Marina says. “But she's never done this before.”

Pearl helped Marina read the ads, but Marina insisted on doing it all herself both times. Marina doesn't get to help her with many things, outside of music and... scratch that. Marina doesn't feel like she gets to help Pearl with many stereotypical, normal aspects of Inkling life, like moving out. She's probably enjoying being the knowledgeable one.

But Hydra nods again and heads out the door, to the little landing that's just elevator and stairs and lock, and Pearl looks around again.

Marina puts a hand on Pearl's shoulder and squeezes. “I've gotta use the bathroom,” she says, and goes inside, closes the door.

Pearl looks around. She walks to the far wall, away from the door, and puts her hand on it. Walks along the wall, letting her hand just... trail along it as she goes. She reaches the corner and turns, still walking along the wall.

She stops halfway through her second circuit of the room and pulls off her boots, and her socks. She puts her feet on the cool floor and wiggles her toes, feeling the smoothness, the coolness. She keeps walking. Some spots of roughness against the bottoms of her feet. A couple knot-holes. None of it would be allowed in her parent's house.

Pearl steps into the middle of the room and turns a slow circle, looking around. The faded, grungy paint. Above her, skylights. Almost the entire ceiling is made up of skylights; they don't have covers, Pearl will always be able to look up at the sun or the stars, and—and her parents would insist on covers, if there were skylights, if they weren't kitschy. If Pearl'd ever tried to install some they'd've gotten rid of them, but they're here already and they're  _hers_ .

In a few weeks, everything in this room will be  _hers_ . Sure, there are limits. She can't burn the building down. She has to be courteous of her neighbors. All things she would do anyway. If she weren't living with her parents.

Pearl lies down on the floor and spreads out her arms and legs, presses her palms and fingers to the ground (it's too solid she can't grab it but she'd like to) and spreads out her tentacles.  _Hers_ . No one knocking at her door in the middle of the night, bursting in and she's obliged to answer and be courteous and behave specific ways or be lectured and have things taken away she may have to replace. No disappointment because she's not—not  _existing_ in the proper way of the house. She lays there, something inside her stretching and uncurling that she didn't know was cramped, and breathes for the first time in... Pearl doesn't even know how long.

The sound of a flush. Marina comes out of the bathroom. She looks at Pearl, sits down next to her, pulls out a handkerchief, and wipes away the tears beneath Pearl's eyes. “You don't have to explain,” Marina says. “I remember what it's like.”

“It was different for you,” Pearl says. “My life at home was never really _bad_ , just...”

“Just you have to leave to be you,” Marina says, “which means you were never really you before. I'll help you pack and say goodbye to Scale and Conch. Have you told your parents yet?”

Scale and Conch. Pearl doesn't know those names, but she bets she knows who they are: the driver who's been with her over two years and the butler Marina's interacted with regularly, the only person always in the house with Pearl. She can finally learn their names.

Pearl isn't ready to leave the floor yet. “Haven't told them yet. I'm considering not telling them. Just seeing how long it takes for them to realize I'm gone.”

“You do that, they'll think they've been robbed,” Marina points out. “Since you're not just taking your room, but most of the music studio.”

Pearl sighs. “Can I just leave a note?”

“Absolutely,” Marina says. “And I'll come with you, in case they read it before you get out of there.”

That's good enough for Pearl. She sighs one more time, then peels herself off the floor. “All right,” she says. “I'm ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends another wild ride, huh?
> 
> Thank you all for reading this, and for your wonderful comments; I treasure every comment I receive, and I reread them all sometimes when I'm feeling down. 
> 
> There probably won't be another splatoon fic for a while. I'm going to try to put my other Splat ideas on hold. I promised my friends in the Sly Cooper fandom a particular fic almost exactly a year ago, now, and while it's still a long way from finished, it's far enough along that I can start posting. 
> 
> I may be back for Splat stuff later, though; I still have ideas. Whether or not they'll go anywhere, well, I suppose we'll find out.
> 
> Thanks for reading. This has been a great ride.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't plan to do this. I didn't want to do this. The idea came to me a week ago and I've got four and a half snapshots, though, so clearly it's gonna happen. Don't expect updates as often as the other one, but I'm aiming for weekly.


End file.
